Article: Council’s greening bid

Thursday October 8, 2009

By DERRICK VINESH

IN an effort to promote a greener municipality, the Seberang Prai Municipal Council (MPSP) in Penang is offering potted plants at a nominal RM1 per pot to schools, government departments and agencies as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

The council's senior assistant agriculture officer Lawrence Cheong said the small decorative plants usually cost around RM3 per pot.

"These establishments can write to us, with endorsement from any municipal councillor, to buy the plants at the subsidised price.

"A nominal fee is charged simply to ensure the recipients value the plants," he said during a recent visit to MPSP's nursery in Permatang Tengah, Bagan Ajam, Butterworth.

Cheong said the council presently had about 5,000 tree saplings as well as 40,000 potted plants which included 10,000 leafy shrubs.

There are 60 plant species in its nursery.

He said among the common shrubs available in the nursery were the cordyline, alamanda, bougainvillea, cassia, biflora, duranta, heliconia, hibiscus and ixora.

The few rare ones, he said, were the coleus (daun hati-hati), cycas, licuala (fan palm) and fucrea.

"Our nursery workers usually prepare about 120 pots of mixed soil a day under a potting shade within the nursery.

"They also do active replanting — they cut stems from adult plant branches and re-grow them in new pots," Cheong said.

He said the freshly replanted plants would take two weeks to root, adding that they would be placed on benches under the shade for another two weeks before they were ready to be sent out.

He said the nursery also had its own composting site where cut grass was mixed with cow dung and soil, and left to assimilate for three months before it could be used as fertiliser for the plants.

Municipal councillor Soon Lip Chee said the nursery staff should actively repaint and replace the dilapidated concrete floral pots that they had earlier placed in strategic locations within Seberang Prai.

"It is pointless to just keep these plants within the nursery when many of the council's potted plants in the streets are in bad condition.

"Now that maintenance of the council's potted plants is under its Town Planning and Beautification Department, there should be a team to inspect them regularly," he said.

Soon said before 2007, the council used to engage a private company to maintain 52,000 potted plants within the municipality at the cost of RM8.8mil over 36 months.

"The council now supplies and maintain potted plants in Seberang Prai," he added.

This article was taken from: The Star Online: Metro: North, 8 October 2009