The Jiayi Flower Market is located in the Jiading Area of Shanghai. Refrigerated trucks filled with flowers come here every morning at 4 pm to bring flowers from near and abroad. Many flowers are imported such as hydrangeas, calla lilies, anthuriums, and tulips from the Netherlands, cut roses from Ecuador, as well as protea cynaroides from South Africa. Nevertheless, you can also find Chinese-grown products including chamomile, sunflowers and eucalyptus. From this market the flowers, plants and other related products are transported to retail shops in Shanghai and surrounding cities.
Some of the flowers at the Jiayi Flower Market, Shanghai
Although flower prices have somewhat lagged behind this year, vendors on the market tell that people are still willing to pay for high-quality flowers. "Take the cut roses as an example, the average price of cut roses from the province of Yunnan is lower than 1 RMB/ stem. However, the imported cut roses from Ecuador are sold against higher prices, flower arrangements made from these roses can be sold for 9000 RMB." Similarly, they mention that the prices of anthuriums from China dropped while those from the Netherlands are currently selling well.
That's not to say, that high-quality flowers are only grown outside China. For instance, tulips from Van der Berg and Hassfarm are equally grown in Yunnan.Currently their wholesale price is approximately 50RMB/10 stems. And the imported tulips are around 80 RMB/ 10 stems. For retail it is about 20 RMB/stem.
