As the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, approaches, flower vendors and cultivators are actively making preparations to cater to a surge of customers seeking auspicious new year flowers.

According to the data from the Beijing Flower Trading Center, from the end of December last year to January 14 this year, the center have seen over 71,000 visits. Especially since January 11, the beginning of the twelfth lunar month, the number of people purchasing flowers has significantly increased.
Over 8 million pots of flowers will be available for sale at the center to meet the purchasing needs of local citizens.
"I love butterfly orchids. It's better to buy them in advance, otherwise it might be difficult to get them right before the Lunar New Year as there will be a lot of people buying flowers then," said Gu Xuehong, a customer.
The flower market has also launched many new products such as home gardening gifts and flowers suitable for indoor care during the winter season, which are available both in online and offline stores.
"The merchants at our market are actively preparing goods. We have over 2 million pots of flowers. We have also set up many home scenarios, different from the traditional booth-style marketing, providing consumers with a reference for home application," said Wang Jiahuan, director of the center.
In southwest China's Yunnan Province, the country's main supplier of flowers, various types of flowers have also started to take the market.
In the flower greenhouses of Jiuxi Town in Yuxi City, neatly arranged boat orchids are blooming. The boat orchids, known for their vase life of up to 45 days, have become the best-selling flowers during this period.
"From November 2023 to January 2024, we sold a total of 60,000 flowering plants online that have already been shipped out," said Zhang Hua, director of a flower company in Yunnan's Kaiyuan City.