February is the flower month, specifically in Baguio where the Panagbenga Festival (Flower Festival) is being celebrated the whole month, and possibly for the rest of the world as well, because of Valentine's Day.  But do you know where those long-stemmed roses and bouquets of mums that you see in flower shops are from?

Most of these come from La Trinidad, just outside of Baguio. La Trinidad is more popular for its strawberry fields which attracts a huge number of visitors all year round. It is called the "Salad Bowl" of the Philippines as well, and during the months of November to March [peak of the flower season], it may as well be known as the Flower Garden of the Philippines.

flowers at the strawberry fields

I was staring at strawberry field's added attraction one chilly dawn: a huge patch of mums in full bloom. I have not seen this before in my previous visit [several years back] or maybe I missed it. No, I couldn't have missed such a glaring photogenic patch.

Related: One Chilly Morning in Strawberry Fields

It wasn't long before the place started to get crowded, and like bees, visitors gravitate to the flowers.

I wanted to find out where the flower farms really are, not the ones setup for tourists to take pictures of. After some quick Goggling, one name came up: Bahong.

Bahong: rose capital of the Philippines

Bahong is a small sleepy village situated down in a valley just a few minutes northeast of the strawberry fields. Public transportation heading there and going back is scare  [I saw people walk several kilometers up a steep road to the main highway] so I decided to rent a cab for a few hours.


As we go down the road that winds to the valley, I see green houses glimmer in the morning light. I later found out that these greenhouses are for mums, the roses are in open fields.


 It's easy to see why the media labelled Bahong as the "Rose Capital of the Philippines". Every square feet of arable land is planted with roses [and recently Malaysian mums].

I walked around a bit hoping I'd meet someone, but it seems like everyone's busy in the fields. So I randomly picked a small pathway among ones that crisscrossed the rose gardens and to see where it leads me to.


Camouflaged among the dark leaves were folks occupied with daily farm chores: harvesting, weeding, and trimming the stems [that's how we get these long straight stems!]. Everyone's ignoring the seemingly lost tourist.



Along the path way I chanced upon an unappealing bunch of freshly cut roses. But once cleaned and sorted and arranged into fancy bouquets, these red beauties can fetch prizes that can leave a quite dent in your wallet.


The price could further go up with the low production from Bahong. The recent cold spell has affected the stunted the roses in Bahong, said Aling Lourdes, one of the rose farmers I've spoken. If its too cold the buds will take an additional week or two to be ready, if its too hot they would wither quickly. It has to be just right. There's much worry that there won't be enough supply to meet the Valentine's day demand.


Aling Lourdes also mentioned that Bahong used to [almost] exclusively produce roses. Nowadays more and more farmers are shifting mums and other cut flowers for better profit.