A `Land of Flowers'

You may not know of a place called Highway Garden (公路花園) but you may have glimpsed a sight of it on local TV reports about a chrysanthemum field in central Taiwan that is illuminated at night by hundreds of bright lights. The purpose of the lights is to prevent the plants blooming. By doing so they grow longer stems and can sell for a higher price in the market.

Flower farming in Taiwan originates in Tianwei (田尾), a town of about 50,000 in Zhanghua County (彰化縣) and residents are used to these bright night scenes in the surrounding countryside from October through March every year.

Tianwei has earned its reputation for being at the heart of the country's flower trade and as such has beautiful gardens and more than 200 flower shops, nurseries and European-style coffee shops along the two-lane road leading to the town. Day and night, the Highway Garden (公路花園) district is busy with loading trucks, flower merchants and curious tourists riding their rented bikes all over the place, like butterflies.

Chen Hsi-chian (陳錫堅) is a second-gene-ration flower farmer in his 40s and is the prime mover behind the Highway Garden project in Tianwei. "Most of the flower farmers in this town inherit their business either from their father or grandfather. Tianwei now grows the biggest variety and highest volume of flowers in Taiwan," Chen said. "We cultivate around 200 hectares of land to grow more than 10 million chrysanthemum plants [of different types] each year, in order to meet the needs of domestic and overseas buyers. Whatever the season, a visitor will see different kinds of flowers being grown here."

Both Lee Kun-ti (李坤地), chairman of the Taiwan Flower and Horticulture Association(台灣省園藝花卉商業同業公會聯合會) and Chen said nature has been kind to Tianwei. With an average of 11 hours of sun per day, mild temperatures throughout the year and less devastation from typhoons than other areas because of its central location, the town has obvious natural advantages and as a result is often called the "Land of Flowers"(花之鄉).

The most important reason for the success of flower growers in the area is however, beneath their feet. The thick mud brought down from mountain areas each year by a flooding Choshui River (濁水溪) provides a fertile soil that supplements that which is taken up by the flowers and taken away as flower pots by the daily convoy of trucks.

With its century-long history of flower farming, Tianwei has expanded its farming operation to approximately 300 hectares. This represents an estimated 43 percent share of Taiwan's wholesale flower market.

As such it was no surprise when Zhanghua County Magistrate Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) chose Hsichou (溪洲), a town a few kilometers south of Tianwei, to host the country's biggest flower expo since 1945. The Flower Expo 2004, which started yesterday, is being held on an old Taisugar (台糖) plantation site with 21 hectares of land. All the land in Tianwei and its environs is taken up with flower production.

There is a good reason why the flower show is being held during the winter season. Due to the relatively cooler temperatures of around 22℃ on average from November to March in central Taiwan, the quality of the flowers is best at this time of the year. Also, the Lunar New Year holiday season -- between mid-January and mid-February, lasting about five days -- sees sales go up by three to four times the normal volume. The flower show in Hsichou from Jan. 17 to March 14 is therefore a good way of promoting sales of high quality winter flowers to the two largest public auction houses in Taiwan -- Neihu (內湖) in Taipei and Tianwei. The other three main flower auction houses are in Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.