‘Cheap things are usually expensive’ so the adage goes. But also ‘big things’ can be churned from small things. As American clergyman and social reformer Henry Ward Beecher once noted: ‘flowers are the swiftest thing God ever made and forgot to put a soul into’, Joseph Mwambali Ntahukuluta has tried to discover the secret behind the growing of flowers.
Locating his flower gardening project along Ntinda – Nakawa road, Mr Ntahukuluta decided to plant more than seven different types of flowers with different colors, on a less than an acre of land.
According to Mr Ntahukuluta, four months into his trade, different clients started approaching him for flowers. “This made me improve on my ability and I had to put in more effort in order to get market; I never expected it, he narrates.
And now twenty years later, the business has expanded, with his clients now including florists from the city, decorators for parties, offices and homes.
“I charge one thousand shillings for each bunch and I sell more than 150 bunches of flowers every four months, Mr Ntahukuluta says.
From his project he has managed to buy a plot of land and constructed his own house. He has also managed to start up a shop as a side business as well as providing employment to other people.
Despite of the good returns he enjoys from the project, Ntahukuluta still complains of undesirable challenges like drought which gives him the hard task of watering the flowers twice a day.
Also, since his business is near the road, dust covers the flowers, changing their natural appearance, most especially the white flowers. He also has to buy pesticides to spray the flowers and prevent them from being attacked by pests.
