Farmers across the country these days have stepped up cultivation of flowers for Tet (Lunar New Year,) which is one month away, but they’re worried that sales may dampen on increased production and bountiful supplies.

Many growers in famous flower villages in the Mekong Delta, including Sa Dec, Cai Mon and My Tho in Dong Thap, Ben Tre and Tien Giang provinces respectively, have expanded their production by 20% for the upcoming Tet.

Tet, which is the country’s biggest holiday during which most people buy flowers to make votive offerings to their ancestors and embellish their homes, begins on February 19 this year.

Dong Thap Province’s Sa Dec Flower Village, which covers over 400 hectares, boasts the delta’s largest flower growing area and yields.

100 hectares are dedicated to growing flowers meant for Tet consumption.

According to Sa Dec City’s Trade Department, growers have expanded their growing areas for Tet flowers by 20 hectares, with total yields expected to reach roughly 2 million pots.

Pham Phuoc, director of Tan Quy Dong Ornamental Flowers Cooperative, said the cooperative’s members alone dedicate around 70 hectares for cultivating Tet flowers.

Much-loved varieties include roses, daisies, marigolds and imported ones. Likewise, farmers in My Tho Flower Village in Tien Giang Province grow around 830,000 flower pots for this year’s Tet, up some 20,000 pots compared to last year, according to Dinh Ngoc Tung, head of My Tho City’s Trade Department.

Popular kinds are Dutch daisies and Thai marigolds.

Tung said the city has warned farmers to assess market demand thoroughly now that neighboring provinces also produce huge amounts of Tet flowers, but cannot interfere with their production.

“Most farmers think they should grow more flowers with the same amount of time, attention and workers and cross their fingers that they will earn greater profits,” Truong Van Nhung, head of My Phong Flower Growing Cooperative, explained about the increase.

The cooperative gathers 175 flower growers, each of who has augmented their production by several hundreds of or a thousand flower pots compared to last year.

Bui Thanh Liem, head of Cho Lach District’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department, said traders placed orders on apricot blossom and ornamental mandarin plants around the same time in the previous years.

The market for these plants this year is unusually damp, as no local growers have received orders from traders, he added.

To make things worse, the unfavorable weather has caused apricot plants to bloom prematurely around three weeks ago.

How to make the trees bloom exactly for Tet also poses a challenge for local farmers.

The district’s growers plan to produce around 3.4 million flower pots in various kinds, including apricot blossoms, daisies, and marigolds for this year’s Tet, Liem noted.

It would be a great success if some 1 million products are consumed at the Ho Chi Minh City market, he stressed.

Growers in other provinces and cities including Can Tho, Kien Giang and Vinh Long have also boosted their production.

Farm owners in Da Lat resort town in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong have also grown tropical flower breeds, which are intended for consumption in HCMC.

“I have warned my cooperative members that supplies may exceed demand, but they seem not to heed my warning. We are all anxious about the purchase power,” Phuoc, director of Tan Quy Dong Ornamental Flowers Cooperative, said.

According to Da Lat Flower Association in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, over half of the Cymbidium orchids grown by local farmers for the Tet market have bloomed prematurely due to dry weather.

Farmers are struggling to slow down their blossoming speed.

The resort city supplies roughly 80,000 tubs of Cymbidium orchids to other provinces and cities each year.

According to Da Lat Flower Association in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, over half of the Cymbidium orchids grown by local farmers for the Tet market have bloomed prematurely due to dry weather.

Similarly, Nguyen Huu Van, chair of the Thua Thien- Hue Province’s Ornamental Creature Association in the central region, many apricot trees have blossomed due to the unusually warm weather, putting local farmers at risk of facing a poor Tet crop.

If the warm weather persists, up to 80% of  Hue City’s apricot trees may bloom far ahead of Tet, he predicted.

Heads of the provinces and cities’ agriculture departments said the provinces and cities have adopted measures to help provide local farmers with certain outlets for their products.

A flower street is slated to take place in My Tho City around Tet, which will consume a large amount of products grown at its flower village.

An apricot tree in Hue City in central Vietnam's Thua Thien- Hue Province is pictured budding more than one month ahead of Tet.

Tet flower consumers’ habits change

Pham Huu Phuoc, director of Dong Thap Province’s Hi-tech Agricultural Application Center, observed Tet flower consumers’ hobbies and demands have seen marked changes in recent years.

City dwellers, many of who live in apartment buildings, now tend to opt for gorgeous, rarely seen flower varieties instead of traditional, bulky tubs of apricot trees or mandarin.

However, not many farmers are willing to quit their traditional Tet flower breeds, Phuoc noted.

His center is currently cooperating with a Dutch partner to conduct research on and cultivate new, affordable varieties.

The center is poised to release a number of new varieties for this year’s Tet.

After years of experimentation, Nam Phuong, a grower in Sa Dec, now debuts some 2,000 baskets of lilies which are shaped as “bonsai”- miniaturized forms of trees and bushes created by rigorous pruning of roots and branches.

Similarly, Tran Van Tiep, another flower grower in Sa Dec, quit growing traditional Tet flowers due to hefty losses some years ago.

In recent years, he has been dedicated to cultivating less-seen imported varieties, which are invariably in good demand.

Tiep said he introduces some three new varieties which are native to the U.S., and the countries in Central America and the Mediterranean region.

He is poised to launch three gorgeous breeds for this year’s Tet, including “zinnia,” a plant of the daisy family with large flowers which boast seven different colors.

The flowers, which can last up to three months and fetch only VND30,000 (US$1.5) each basket, have sold like hot cakes.

He has inked agreements to supply 6,000 baskets of zinnia to HCMC’s iconic Tet Flower Street this year and another 60,000 baskets for Can Tho City’s Tet Flower Street.

Rosemary, another of Tiep’s hallmark products, is a woody, perennial herb with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple, or blue flowers.

The herbs’ leaves emit fragrance of essential oil upon touch.