Part 2 - Taoyuan Airport (Five Airports in Two Weeks)

Taiwan is a very progressive country.  Small in terms of area, it is one of the richest countries in Asia. Horticulturally, it is known for its very progressive orchid industry, being the world's top producer of phalaenopsis.  Interestingly, only a small number of species of this type of orchid are native to Taiwan.  In contrast, most of the most significant parent species are from the Philippines which does not figure even as a minor player in this commercially important agricultural commodity.

Taoyuan Airport is the international airport near Taipei, the top city in Taiwan.  While Taiwan has two international airports, one on the notherth side (Taoyuan) and another in the southern side, the former is undesputedly the more busy of the two.

This busy international airport is rather small in comparison with the other international airports in other similarly progressive countries.  Maybe, the best description would be that its a no-frills, very businesslike airport, an airport catering to business travellers and not to tourist or sightseers.

It should not come as a surprise then that the airport does not have extensive spaces for plants and plant arrangements.

However, what came as a surprise was the quality of the plants that were used to spruce up the little space that was allocated for greening up the airport.

The plants were all very healthy, well groomed to the point that an ordinary traveller may even think that they are artificial because of their uniformity  and high quality.














Though it is understandable that given the environmental conditions that the plants in use will be mainly indoor foliage plants like aglaonemas, dracaenas and diffenbachias, there was still some effort to put flowering plants such as the row of flowering kalanchoes.

Surprisingly, this trip I did not see any orchids on display at the airport.  Well, I guess I will have to travel another time for that.