Plants and gardening

 Whether you've got a balcony, a garden or a window sill, get some plants.   It always makes a place feel more homely and some of them, you can eat.

Buying Plants

Most markets will have someone selling a small selection of plants. If the plant urge grabs you, by all means, pick yourself up a plant or two. The choice won't be great but those I've seen are in pretty good condition.

Mobile plant stores are one of my favourite sights.  Pulled by a motorbike they roam the residential areas of Battambang and sometimes park up near markets.  Most offer a good selection of plants, some specialise in trees.

There are several plant shops around town, these are the ones I tend to go to most often.  I've embedded their location on Google Maps so you can find them easily.

Ta Tuy Flowers Shop location

Heading out of town on Road 405 you'll find three plant shops side by side.  They have a fantastic array of plants large and small and a particularly impressive range of orchids.  One of them also has a great selection of planters and plant pots.

Big Plant Shop location

This one is a little trickier to find so I've included a receipt with the address which you can show a tuk-tuk or Passap driver.

I've marked it on the map but it doesn't exist on Google maps as a business so you just get a rather vague view of Street 815.  A few additional directions might help you reach it.  Head south along the east bank of the river, watch out for the railway bridge on your left.  As soon as you cross the railway tracks, turn right, follow the road along the wall of the Wat and take the first right.  The plant shop is about 700 m along the road on the right-hand side.

This is my favourite of all the Battambang plant shops, it's huge, it's friendly, you can get great plant advice.  It's where to go if you want to buy trees and bougainvillaea. I've found their potting soil to be of better quality than elsewhere and many of the plants are propagated in-house so you know they're well suited to Battambang conditions.
As a bonus, they also have friendly cats.

City Centre Plants: location Head to the Naga Peace Statue park, across from it, hugging the riverbank, is a well-stocked plant store.  They sell topiary trees in large pots, some feature plants, orchids and other hanging plants, bedding plants and lots more.  Handy if you're in the area but a little more expensive than the others.

Gardening Tools and equipment: 

Heng Chhay Lee location, one floor up, you'll find loppers, saws, small watering cans and spray bottles, occasionally spades and garden hoses, plant wire and gardening gloves. On the ground floor, near the frozen food section, you'll find some seeds, a mixture of flower and vegetables.  They're mostly of Thai or Vietnamese origin so well suited to our climate.  There's not much to choose from and they sell out fast so if you see something you fancy, snap it up.

New Market/Psar Thmey location is particularly good for agricultural items, you'll find spades, garden hoses, plastic plant pots, small hand tools like saws, machetes, sickles, pruning scissors, garden brooms, wire mesh if you're planning fencing or want support for climbing plants. Just wander around.
Mr Machete (not his real name): directions there are a couple of blacksmiths in town.  I like this one because he has a great range of products and I can watch him work. I've bought a sickle and spade from him, both are well made and do their job wonderfully. On the west side of the river, cross the Hung Sen bridge and take a right.  He's located just past the old walking bridge on the right-hand side.

More plant-related stuff

I found a blog which was written in 2017, it isn't updated any more but it has some very good advice on growing (or not growing) things here. https://gardenbattambang.blogspot.com/