“I can spend two hours grubbing about in my garden, dazed with pleasure and intent, and it feels like five minutes.” – Alice Walker

Every responsible adult knows that they must subscribe to personal accountability and self-assessment at key intervals of life. Accordingly, the Unlikely Gardener, upon realising that the most consistent debits on her balance sheet have been consigned to plants and plant care, had to ask herself: 1. Are you a garden addict?; 2. Do you suffer from various degrees of plant addiction disorder? and 3. Is it currently just “IPAD” (Indoor Plant Addiction Disorder) or full-scale?

If you have developed a similar affinity for plants like me, don’t worry. because it’s en vogue. “Pandemic gardening” has provided solace and pure joy for people far and wide, especially for those of us who are certified card-carrying members of the “tan a yuh yaad” club. As reported elsewhere, “The impulse to garden in hard times has deep roots… the coronavirus pandemic has set off a global gardening boom.”

The search

There are phases to this plant thing. You start small, acquire more, do a lot reading on care, species and varieties. You do an inventory and boom! You realise that there are rare, exotic and unusual plants that you simply must have… immediately. You start plant-hunting. Then, you realise that you’re such an impassioned plant hunter that you start to travel with your hand-held cutters in the car just in case you see something offered by nature on the roadside that you like and wish to bless with a new nurturing environment.

It is with this spirit of urgency, in an effort to secure two Bismarck palms and the revered, holy grail of Arecaceae, the lipstick palm, that I was introduced to Nicholas McIntosh, a lifelong resident of St James and a western connoisseur of rare, exotic and unusual plants.

An affinity for the unusual

Based in the cool rural community of Somerton, Nicholas cultivates a myriad of plant species with a flair for the odd and extraordinary. He is living proof of Jekyll’s quote,“The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.”

In 1998, he was introduced to the art of gardening by a Mrs Vassell, who kept him under her tutelage until she migrated in 2009. He explains, “I used to help Mrs Vassell on weekends for pocket money and continued when I left school. Plants became my life and love. Mrs Vassell was a plant expert and had a plant encyclopaedia. We used to go to flower shows with the encyclopaedia and assist in naming unusual plants that people brought.”

Prior to her migration from Jamaica, Mrs Vassell gifted Nicholas a lot of her unusual, rare and exotic plants which gave him a commercial jump-start as he continued his plant passion pursuits which include transferred skill and knowledge of floral arrangements. “She even tried to teach me the cooking,” he quips, “but me nuh too interested in that.”

As far as business goes, Nicholas says, “Whenever people want something unusual, they call me… just the way you met me is how clients meet me.” If the plant hunter wants it, Nicholas is likely to be able to find it. With a tip of the hat to the stay-at-home mandate of the pandemic, for the purveyor, the plant business boom means that “any and all plants sell right now” and he’s happy for the positive market wave.

The buzz

1. Dendrobium aggregatum or Demdrobium lindleyi: The native Southeast Asian species displays showers of brilliant yellow blooms most pleasing to the eye.

2. An unusual red ginger that Nicholas is yet to name. “When it blooms, the flower sometimes gets so big that the plant bends down to the ground,” he says.

3. The Hairy Monkey Heliconia: A very rare and expensive plant which has strong retail value.

4. Red Lipstick Palm: A hard-to-find and dearly priced striking palm tree with bright red lipstick stalks and stems.

5. Aglaonema/Chinese Evergreen: This boasts many different varieties to include tri-colour.

To the rare, exotic & unsual!

In celebration of the things which give us joy, peace, fulfilment and love, here’s to Nicholas, his continued success and also to his rare, exotic and unusual plants.