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China Elevator Stories
Exploring Flower Shops in Shenzhen’s Garden City
I chat with the owner of a plant shop in Shenzhen.
30/06/2013
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
Our team was working on an app recently, and we needed to do some research on plants. My company houses quite a few plants, and once each week a young woman working at a florist comes into our company to water the flowers. After talking to her and asking her a few questions, we decide to visit her flower shop the next day.
My co-workers and I take a cab to her shop. I thought that we would simply arrive at a small flower shop, but when the cab gets closer to the area where the shop is located, it turns out that this already very green city is turning even greener by the minute. The cab driver lets us get out at the entrance to an area that I’ll call “garden city.” The area is very central, but instead of skyscrapers, tiny shops overflowing with beautiful flowers and plants line the streets.
The owner of the flower shop explains that their main customers are companies and owners of big villas. The job of people like the young woman is to take care of the plants they sell to their customers, which is mainly watering the plants. I think this makes for quite a nice and relaxed job.
When we are finished asking questions, the owner invites us to take us back to the entrance of this garden city by car, but we decide to walk to the entrance on foot once we see that her car is quite small and already has a few other passengers, namely plants, sitting at the back of the car, waiting patiently to be brought to their new homes.
Have you ever been to a garden city?