Keeping it green and neat

For the past 40 years, 55-year-old Alloys Mosoti has been conserving the environment by beautifying the area he lives in.

The man from Bochari, Kisii County plants flowers and hedges then takes him time pruning and trimming them to give them unique shapes and sizes.

Mosoti says his eyes are attracted to greens and that’s the reason he has made efforts to ensure that the environment is pretty and attractive.

“I started designing flowers at 15 years of age when I was a small boy. Back then I would use slashers and pangas to trim trees and flowers in our compound,” he recalls.

After his secondary education, Mosoti joined Bukura Institute where he studied Agriculture and landscaping. This was after he was advised to do so by a white man in the institute who had seen his work in the school.

He completed his studies and went back home. He decided to apply his newly acquired skills and planted different varieties of flowers at his home compound.

“My family supported me to plant 2,000 flowers and with this in place, I did not go to look for a job at the agricultural offices. I had already created my own job at home,” he said.

Mosoti said he would wake up early in the morning, move around the compound with his trimming scissors and work on the flowers.

“Day by day as the flowers grew from one stage to the next, I would think of different shapes and designs and then practice them on my flowers. I made my money by having choirs come to use our compound for their video shoot and would charge them Sh10,000 per day,” he said.

Mosoti also took his passion and skill to beautify the village rough road. For over one kilometer on both sides of the road, he planted flowers and hedges which he keeps trimmed all the time.

He worked on over one kilometer of the road, planting flowers on both sides of the road. He says he did this to send a message to his neighbours to plant flowers as a way of conserving and beautifying the environment and this has given the village a uniform mix of red and green colours.

“I have also planted flowers at my village schools both secondary and primary as well as churches. My work in the village has attracted ridicule with many labeling me a mad man,” he says.

Apart from working on hedges and flowers, the father of six also mentors over 500 people who he trains on how to plant, grow and nurture flowers.

He says that his talent is unique and out of passion that has made him to mentor over 500 people who trains in flower planting and nurturing them.