Flower growers in the Mekong Delta are troubled with the unusually cold weather conditions and fear damage to their seasonal flowers and ornamental plants.
Another district resident named Le Thi Lan noticed that her 17,000 pots of daisies were slowly showing signs of frost bite.
In Ba Bo flower village, Binh Thuy District, Can Tho City many farmers are anxious and taking special care of their flower gardens particularly after the recent heavy rains.
Nguyen Van Ben has grown flowers for Tet for 20 years and this year he claims that 20 percent of his 2,000 pots of daisies had already been damaged. On the other hand, the cost of fertilizers, pesticides and labor had also increased which added to their woes.
People in Tan Quy Dong village, Sa Dec District of Dong Thap Province quoted a 30-40 percent rise in expenses on flower and ornamental plant gardening. This has led the village to prepare only three million flower pots this year, one third less than previous years on traditional flowers like daisies and marigold.
Traders had streamed into gardens to buy flowers in previous years but this year has been dull according to flower growers in Long Thoi Commune, Cho Lach District.
Tran Van Nam in the Ba Bo flower village, Binh Thuy District said that because few traders have come to buy flowers this year, the local growers had to hire stalls in Can Tho City to sell their flowers.
A small stall of just four square meters cost VND1.4 million while selling a mere two pots of daisies could be expected to fetch less than VND50, 000. Several of the flower growers expected to see losses this year.
According to Bui Thanh Liem, head of the Cho Lach District Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in Ben Tre Province, farmers in the district had prepared four million pots of flowers and ornamental plants for the coming Tet, which was half the amount from previous years. So far only 40 percent of the pots have been sold.
