There’s a saying, “Chinese New Year (CNY) is as much about scent as it is about sights and sounds”. Visiting the flower market and buying flowers and bonsai for CNY is an essential activity for most households at this time of year, because among the Chinese, living blooms in the home add not only adornment, but abundant good fortune.

Bustling flower markets, dotted all over the city, open a week before the first day of the New Year. Quickly, they are filled with throngs of people preparing for the holidays,  some to snap up the biggest or freshest blooms, others who just want to take in the riot of colors and scents.

The most prominent colors of CNY are scarlet-red and gold. Red symbolizes happiness. Gold symbolizes good fortune. In keeping with the traditions, orchids, gladiolus, azaleas, peonies, water lilies and narcissus become highly sought-after during the festive season.

To wholesale florists and farmers, the ability to provide an abundant supply of stocks depends heavily on good weather. Only a slight variation from normal weather conditions could wipe out half their seasonal business. Bad weather could mean a total loss.

A cold front just prior to the last CNY hit farmers hard, rendering huge losses. This year could be even worse, as an extended period of warm weather brought out the blossoms early well ahead of spring festival celebrations, says Leung Yat-shun, a member of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Flower Plant Workers’ General Union and owner of a 70-acre farm in San Tin in the New Territories.

There are around 100 farmers who grow flowers in Hong Kong, accounting for less than one tenth of flowers supplied to the market.

“We plant the flower seeds 15-17 weeks prior to make sure that the blooms will be at their fullest at the beginning of CNY,” Leung says. The Year of the Dragon begins on Jan 23.

Leung, 60, focuses mainly on water lilies and gladiolus for CNY. He sells to local retailers. In the summer, he grows different types of vegetables to rotate tillage and to keeps the soil fertile.

“We can hardly survive by growing only vegetables. We have to grow cash crops too,” the fisherman-turned-farmer tells China Daily. Wholesale prices are set in a range of HK$10-15 per branch of water lily. The retail price is at least double or triple that, depending on shop locations, he says.

Inflation and appreciation of the renminbi and Euro have pushed up the cost of imported fertilizers and other expenditure. Leung says he will lose 10 percent of his profit if prices remain unchanged over last year.

“We paid for flower seeds and fertilizers in renminbi and Euro last year when the currency rate was at its highest against HK dollars,” he grumbles, but the indefatigable farmer insists that he will keep the business going even if he loses money.

“Farming is a highly risky investment. Terrible weather can destroy all the crops and leave you with nothing,” Leung adds.

This past year was a true test of the farmers’ mettle.  Heavy rainfall in September and October caused heavy damage to the newly-planted seedlings.

“Acid rains ‘burned’ the seedlings to death,” Leung sighs, pointing at some withered yellowish water lily seedlings, as he tromped along the intersecting pathways. “I’m lucky that I lost only 30 percent of my flowers but fellow farmers suffered half to 80 percent loss.”

Thanks to the relatively fecund land he rents, for approximately HK$120,000 a year, Leung doesn’t use pesticides on his plants. That saves him quite a lot of money.

Leung stresses that the warmer-than-expected weather in Hong Kong this year, precoscious blooms a week before CNY, will comprise 60 percent of this year’s produce. Once they are past their peak, it will be impossible to sell them at a good price.

As a result, floral traders have warmed customers to prepare for a 30-50 spike in prices if they insists on buying the high quality blossoms that remain by the time festivities begin.

“This is a market-oriented business. The lower the supply, the higher the price,” says chairman Sunny Lai of the Hong Kong Wholesale Florist Association.

CNY this year is a bit too close to the just-concluded Christmas-New Year season. That may affect the sale of flowers and with that in mind some florists are lowering their orders for fresh flowers, acknowledges Lai.

“With gloomy economy prospects, we see people becoming more frugal about spending this year. Even extravagant spenders bargain, which is something they wouldn’t do in the past,” Lai says.

He says retailers face a huge problem this year.  They are saddled with significantly increased costs that they dare not to transfer to customers for fear of losing even more business.

The “Orchid King” Yeung Siu-lung says the cost has gone up HK$10 per pot of orchids. Yeung says customers went to his garden 10 days earlier than they normally would this year to purchase the rare and high-grade orchids.

Yeung adds that blossomed orchids have to be sold at lower prices. “We used to sell more than HK$100 per pot but now customers get to buy a few pots for under HK$100,” he says.

The lease on Leung’s farmland will run out next year.  He says he will look for another piece of land if the owner refuses to renew the contract.

Despite the overwhelming demand for CNY flowers, Leung reveals that farming has become more and more arduous over the years. One factor that irks him is the uncontrollable reclamation of farmland owned by indigeneous people wanting to develop their properties.

Leung blames the government for allowing the reclamation, on grounds that the area has no value as a landscape.

“Underground water is severely polluted and has become contaminated by dumped construction materials,” he says. Leung now has to use purified water for irrigation.

Leung continues using an ancient and organic method to cleanse the water — growing weeds in fishponds. Pond water is safe for irrigation after years of self-purification, he says.

Many farmlands are left abandoned nowadays. Leung urges the government to act as middleman to link up farmers and land owners many of whom left Hong Kong decades ago.

“Some lands have been abandoned for tens of years but farmers have no way to contact the owners,” he says. “All parties would be happy if the government offered help: farmers get more land to grow crops while the owners get someone to look after their properties.”

Leung’s family has been in farming for three generations since they migrated to Hong Kong from Zhongshan, Guangdong province  in the 1960s. His children however do not plan to continue the family business, which they say has become moribund.

Leung stands, looking out over the bucolic setting, taking obvious pride in the bounty before him.  “Farming is my life-long occupation. I will continue doing it until I’m not able,” he says.