Sa Dec City in Dong Thap Province is the largest flower-growing area in the Mekong Delta.
This Tet, nearly 4,000 households planted over 100 hectares of various ornamental flowers.
In previous years, gardeners would sell out about a week before Tet, leaving only a few for sale to tourists near the city center. However, this year, many flowers have remained unsold, especially traditional Tet varieties like daisies and marigolds.
Tran Thi Hien in Tan Khanh Dong Ward grew 5,000 chrysanthemum morifolium pots and 700 marigold pots, but she estimated that she would be able to sell only 20% of them at half of last year's prices.
These days, she only cares for and waters over 1,000 baskets, leaving the rest overturned, waiting to uproot them.
"In previous years, traders would buy hundreds or thousands of baskets from my garden, but now they only buy a few dozen pairs," she said.
Hien stands next to pots of chrysanthemum morifolium flowers that she plans to abandon soon due to low sales this holiday season.
"I've never had such a sad Tet. After working hard for six months on the farm, I lost more than VND100 million ($4,100)," she said, adding that she had to send 130 baskets to the market two days ago, but so far only a third of them have found customers.
Last year, a pair of chrysanthemum morifolium sold at the farm for VND120,000-180,000, but now it cost only VND100,000, and could drop to as low as VND40,000-60,000 soon.
Having invested over VND200 million in planting 8,000 chrysanthemum morifolium pots, Ngoc Thuan now has to uproot 7,500 pots due to pest infestation and difficulty selling.
"There’re many pests this year and if I spray pesticide excessively, the plants will dry out and the flowers won’t bloom," he said.
Nguyen Van Loc, who grew over 5,000 flower baskets, has only sold 30% of them so far.
He is now bringing his flowers to the roadside to sell them at cheap prices, accepting major losses.
Nguyen Van Hiep estimates that he lost around VND150 million as his customer numbers plunged and his flowers suffered from pests.
These days, Hiep takes his daisies and marigolds to the roadside and sells them for VND20,000-50,000 per pot, but few people were interested.
"Last year, traders suffered losses, so this year they bought very little," he said, adding that at the beginning of the season, traders placed deposits but abandoned them when the market turned downward, causing him heavy losses.
"There's no joy for Tet anymore," he said.
Next to uprooted flower stands, Tu Bong has already started replanting a new crop to try to forget this wretched season.
"I uprooted all the old ones because seeing them during Tet would be sad. Let it go, spring is coming, everything old should be renewed for good luck," Bong said.
Nguyen Thi Ngoc, Head of the Economic Office of Sa Dec City, said that Tet flowers are grown in many provinces in the Mekong Delta, so the competition among localities is fierce.
"The city has advised farmers not to consider Tet flowers as the main crop of the year and to diversify flower varieties," she said.
Additionally, they need to improve sales skills, maintain stable prices throughout the season, and avoid the situation of setting the prices too high at the beginning of the season and then lowering them too quickly.
