How does your garden grow?

Art director Duangtat Hansupansusorn has always enjoyed pottering around in the garden and for the last four years, she’s been focusing on turning her hobby into a career by offering hand-painted wooden garden furniture and patio accessories under the brandname Greenery Handmade.

 

A former advertising executive, Duangtat says she and her older sister used to spend their holidays “cheering up” clay flowerpots with hand-painted flowers and cartoons and Greenery Handmade evolved from there. The pair showcased their work for the first time at the annual Baan Lae Suan Fair in 2008 and then at the Bangkok International Gift and Houseware Fairs. The pieces sold well on the local market and soon they were receiving orders from Japanese entrepreneurs too.

 

A couple of years later, they expanded the line to include swings and garden benches, joining up with the owner of a small furniture factory who’d learned his techniques from a Chiang-Mai-born veteran carpenter. 

 

“We care about functionality, quality and good design,” Duangtat says. “Customers can choose a motif from a catalogue and adjust the size and materials of the furniture.”

 

Last month, they opened a small shop at the new Mega Bangna shopping mall. It’s stocked with a selection of furniture that’s hand-painted with such floral motifs as camellias, orchids, poppies, lilies, peonies, tulips and strelitzia, sometimes called birds of paradise.

 

The garden furniture, mainly benches and tables, is made from many types of locally available hardwoods and built to last.

 

Among the most attractive designs to grace a garden are the durable white swings with a yellow stretlitzia pattern, white benches covered with a camellia, partitions with a poppy and mailboxes, along with cute clay flowerpots in different shapes and umbrella holders painted with animals, strawberries and vegetables.

 

The shop also stocks a range of home decor items created by designer friends like wooden cabinets that resemble petrol pumps and telephone boxes and Chinese-style mailboxes, as well as handmade pillows, dolls, beanbags and bags in the shape of rabbits, apples, cats and guitars.

 

SHADES OF GREEN

Greenery is situated on the second floor of Mega Bangna on Bangna Trad Road Km. 8. It’s open daily from 10am to 10pm. Call (02) 105 1997 or visit http://www.weloveshopping.com/template/e1/shop.php?shopid=139974