Shopping for New Year Plant

Every consumer industry is maximizing the business opportunities during the festive seasons.

The flower shops have been ‘assigning’ meaning to suitable flowers. It pursues consumers to buy the good wishes. In the year of dragon, the most special plant has to be the Dragon Fruit (it is an eatable cactus fruit). I bought an unique pitcher plant as my new year ‘pet’ (it catches flies).

The most popular and traditional Chinese New Year plants are the ‘for-display-only’ little mandarin (桔子: 大吉大利).

I personally prefer the edible type (皇帝桔). Freeze the fruits in low temperature and eat it during the hot day, it was heavenly (the sugary juice bursts inside my mouth, more fragrant than Sunkist Orange). So I am thinking of using a picture to illustrate how juicy these (similar) mandarin could be like.

Every year, there will be some newer plants or species imported by the merchants to create new demands. I saw this Japanese rose that looked like fake flowers, but indeed it was real (quite expansive, and I don’t think it would last too long).

It is probably more economical to stick some plastic flowers onto green plants. My mum used to decorate all the plants at home with red packets (Ang Pao) and decorative.

I have been to the flower market in Hong Kong but people say the best time would be now to buy cherry blossom (buds) and other flowers with new year theme. Sungai Buloh is a major farming and distribution hub near Kuala Lumpur, so I manage to see lots of color-dyed cherry blossom stems for sales.

People love to buy things before it is in ‘season’. At the end of rabbit year, many abandoned rabbits were found. Similarly, many new year plants were just for displayed during these 15 days of celebration, and they may ended up in the garbage bin soon. It could be more environmental friendly to buy a plant that we really like to keep.

We love visiting the flower shops at Sungai Buloh. We also always ended up with ice cream cone in our hands.  If the weather is good, we will be heading to Jenjarom to see more flowers and lanterns at the Dong Zen FGS temple (东禅寺).