TAMPARULI: Like any other hardworking individual, one single mother’s perseverance has certainly paid off, as Brazilian football legend Pele aptly puts it, “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do”. Monica Nain, 57, a mother of six began her plant nursery business merely with a startup capital of RM350 and 10 flowering plants in 2012.
She called her enterprise Anika Nursery, which is located at Lakang Ria here. “Gradually my business grew and thankfully since then, my nursery can produce more than 300 flowering plants particularly bougainvillea monthly.
“I have since sold more than 10,000 flowering plants to customers in not just Sabah but Sarawak, Brunei and Peninsular Malaysia,” she told Bernama, adding that her nursery further offered flower seeds, fertiliser and black soil for sale. Not only has Monica been able to support her family with the returns from her business, she definitely feels a sense of achievement particularly as she proudly acknowledges that one of her children is now pursuing a degree in Human Resources Development at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas).
Motivated by her success, Monica has ventured into smallscale landscaping and found that she did have a knack for it. And because she was able to deliver what customers specifically wanted, orders ranging from RM15,000 to RM40,000 readily come for her to landscape compounds of houses, housing estates, hotels and schools in the district.
“I can complete a job in 10 to 15 days with the help of three workers,” she said. Meanwhile, Monica said most of the flower seedlings that are nurtured at Anika Nursery come from Kota Marudu, a major flower producing district in Sabah.
“I also get seeds of anthurium plants from Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand and grow them in the nursery,” she added. Despite the fact that she does not get any funds from any quarters, she is determined to develop her landscaping endeavour to the next level. – Bernama
