Feng Xiaoyan, a big flower and seedling grower

She is a person who does not admit defeat and dares to challenge difficulties; she is a person who never forgets to drive others to get rich. She is Feng Xiaoyan, a well-known flower and seedling grower. Feng Xiaoyan lives in Phosphate Mine Town, Zhongxiang City, Hubei Province. Since childhood, she had a dream of having her own garden, cultivating soil, watering and fertilizing them every day, and watching the flowers grow and bloom day by day.

Feng Xiaoyan

In order to realize this dream, Feng Xiaoyan, then director of village women, resigned in August 1992 and went to study in the Forestry Department of Huazhong Agricultural University at her own expense. After nearly two years of efforts, she received a certificate of completion from the Department of Agriculture and Forestry. From then on, she began her career in floriculture. From the beginning of working for people in the horticulture field, she used what she had learned to apply it to the practice of flower and tree production. She modestly sought advice from old florists and experts, which laid a solid foundation for her future entrepreneurship. Despite her meagre salary and heavy physical strength at that time, she did not retreat, because this is what she loved. Later, she became her own boss. After nearly 10 years of hard work, Feng Xiaoyan's flower and tree market became bigger and bigger, with total assets reaching more than 4 million yuan. Ruan Ping Horticultural Farm has developed from a former base of 30 mu to five bases of 500 mu of large-scale seedling production enterprises; flower and tree varieties have also grown from more than 10 to more than 50, and now there are more than 500,000 seedlings of all kinds, due to excellent varieties. Seedlings only worry about growth, not worry about sales. Over the past few years, Feng Xiaoyan has provided more than 400,000 high-quality economic seedlings to nearby flower farmers and more than 400,000 green seedlings to the market. Her products have been exported to Shaanxi, Henan, Hunan, Wuhan, Xiangfan, Jingmen, Yichang and other places in Hubei Province, becoming a veritable "flower king" in central China.

In July 1996, a rare flood hit the Jianghan Plain, not only the thousands of mu of farmland in the phosphate town, but also Feng Xiaoyan's horticulture was destroyed. The seedlings in the horticultural field were flooded more than a meter deep for as long as half a month. More than 100,000 high-quality sand pear seedlings and tens of thousands of green seedlings carefully cultivated by Feng Xiaoyan were drowned by the merciless flood! The loss amounts to more than 100,000 yuan. She looked at her hard work for several years and then she lost her voice and burst into tears! At this time, her husband, as a national cadre, was squatting in the village to fight floods and disaster relief with farmers, and had no time to take care of her and the horticulture field. She had to devote herself to the recovery after the disaster alone. She invited migrant workers to wash the seedlings that still had a glimmer of life with clean water, and washed the seedlings full of infinite hope with tears and sweat again and again. Although the flood was ruthless, but determined to fight the disaster, Feng Xiaoyan finally overcame the difficulties and brought the horticulture back to life in only one year. In 1997, she invested more than 200,000 yuan to buy out the management right of 100 mu of barren mountains for 30 years.

On the way to starting a business, she has a good assistant-her husband Huang Jianhua. In order to support Feng Xiaoyan's cause, Huang Jianhua has been suspended from work three times to be a good wife's driver and "bodyguard." In the spring of 1995, Feng Xiaoyan took up the heavy burden of the director of the Ruan Ping horticulture field by virtue of her own strength. At that time, the horticulture field was full of barren grass and deserted and depressed. In order to revive the horticulture field, she made a special trip to Wuhan to invite flower and tree experts to visit the horticulture field to demonstrate whether the soil, climate, water and other conditions were suitable for the development of garden planting. After getting the conclusion affirmed by the experts, she had confidence. However, at this time, she was just pregnant, physically inconvenient, pruning and grafting, coupled with the poor sales of flowers and trees at that time, she hesitated and wandered. Huang Jianhua, as her husband, saw that his wife often had cramps in her legs because of intense labor, and that she had a strong reaction to pregnancy. Distressed, but he knew that his wife would not lightly give up the career she loved. He took the initiative to undertake all the housework at home, massaging her swollen legs at night and encouraging her to "persevere in her career. Persistence is victory." Feng Xiaoyan fell asleep on her husband's shoulder with relief. The next morning she plunged into the nursery again and sorted out her records in the evening.

Flower and tree production as a sunrise industry, although the market prospect is broad, but if we want to always stand at the forefront of the market competition, we must rely on science and technology to be in an invincible position. Over the years, Feng Xiaoyan not only invited experts and technicians from other places to guide the production of flowers and trees, but also subscribed to hundreds of yuan of newspapers and magazines such as "China Flower Daily" and "Bonsai of Flowers and trees" every year, making use of scientific and technological knowledge. engage in technological innovation in flower and tree production, actively introduce new varieties, and use new technology, so that the horticulture farm will become an experimental field and demonstration site for flower and tree production. After repeated practice, Feng Xiaoyan successfully introduced new varieties of flowers and trees, such as Magnolia Magnolia, four Seasons Cinnamomum, Magnolia angustifolia, Michelia mollissima, Cinnamomum camphora, etc., and successfully grafted sweet-scented osmanthus with large-leaf privet, and adopted techniques such as raising seedlings in greenhouse, transplanting shoots, chemical regulation and summer cutting, which shortened the production of sand pear seedlings from two years to one year, which was highly praised by Wang Chengye, senior agronomist of the Chinese Society of Horticulture. As Feng Xiaoyan pays attention to technological progress and relies on science and technology to develop production, 95% of the flowers and trees planted in her gardening site are bred and produced by herself, and science and technology is her main means of developing production.