The Sunflowers of Shun Sum Yuen Farm

You can’t miss it, spring is here in Hong Kong.  It is time to see flowers.  The local press has been reporting on the Shun Sum Yuen Farm in San Tin, Yuen Long.  My friend and I took a trip out there this past Sunday.

The farm is quite big at 35,000 square feet.  The owner Leung Yat-shun imported 100,000 sunflower seeds from the Netherlands to grow in his fields.  Amongst these seeds are the common sunflower yellow kind.  There are also red sunflowers and sunflowers in Champaign color.

We entered the farm and came across some smaller fields first.  There were two fields of pink and red gladiolus.  These are the very last batch remaining.  As we know, gladiolus are for the winter, and so they will not stay very long in the field.  They are beautiful though.

Photo: The Gladiodus also came from the Netherlands

In the middle of the farm there is a resting area.  Staff serve soft drinks there and customers can also purchase souvenirs.  Since my father made a request, I spent $50 on five packs of sunflower seeds, each pack comes with three seeds.

Photo above: A Mango Tree with Low Hanging Fruits at Shun Sum Yuen Farm.

As we walked toward the main sunflower fields, we passed by a small but very interesting lotus pond.  We learned that the regular blooming season for lotus and water lilies would come in the next month or so.  Yet there were some really beautiful water lilies there, fully bloomed.

We could not wait further and hurried to the sunflower fields.  There were many people indeed.  As such it was quite difficult to avoid the crowds showing in our photographs.  It was in this large field that a staff told us about the only (yes, the one and only) red sunflower in the farm.  She told us that one special quality of the red sunflower is that it does not follow the sun.  Therefore it was facing one way, when all the surrounding sunflowers faced the other way.  It also comes with many smaller buds that do not bloom.  It is not so easy to successfully grow red sunflowers.

Photos: Red Sunflowers are rare.  They also do not follow the sun, unlike the other sunflowers.

To be honest, the yellow sunflower fields were slightly disappointing to us.  The flowers tended to be short.  It was not like we could walk amidst a sunflower “grove” like we usually see in other fields or movies.  Yet we knew that this is the best we can have in Hong Kong.

The Champaign-colored sunflowers were good, however.  They were tall and blooming, and indeed with petals of a much gentler hue than the sunflower yellow.  I am not too good with floral photography, but again I tried my best here.

What really impressed us was the staff at the sunflower farm.  We would be just doing our little small talks and asking each other questions, and they would hear us and give us the answers right away.  We talked to a few women there.  Some of them explained to us why they were yelling at the visitors, warning them not to touch the flowers or wear their backpacks within the field.  They said some of these sunflowers just bloomed on that day and because people were not careful, they wilt by the end of the day.

From another we learned that the flowers are the hard work of mid-aged farm women.  They love this farm, and besides flowers, they also plant edible crops such as corn and pumpkin.  In the winter, they showcase lilies.

When the farm first opened, the owner did not charge any fees.  They did not know if their initiative would be popular.  Now that the word has spread, there is good business at the farm.  However, the villagers do not really like the fact that the farm draws thousands of people to the village.  Therefore please do be considerate and do not cause annoyance at the village.

One of the women told us how to plant the sunflowers.  It is a good time from now till September to sow the seeds.  After September, the sunflowers would not grow well.  In the first week of planting, the seeds need watering daily.  Then let it grow with lots of sunshine.

Finally, she also told us about the name of the farm.  I asked because “Shun Sum” in Cantonese also means faith.  Could the owner have been Christian?  She said no, “Shun” is the name of the owner Leung Yat-shun.  He chose “sum” as the second word meaning that every species of flower comes with a pistil (“sum” in Chinese).

How to Get There

There is a $50 per head entrance fee to visit the farm.

We went by private car, but I do not recommend driving there.  There is no legal parking spot in the village.  Although we parked there for about an hour without incident, it was not a good idea because we learned that the villagers did not appreciate this farm.

A sign on site said that the closest parking space available is close to the San Tin Post Office.

By public transport: Take Bus 76K and get off at the Shek Wu Wai bus stop.

Source

The Sunflower Festival of San Tin, Yuen Long, April 19, 2021, Apple Daily.

Sundaykiss.com, Sunflowers Bloom at Shun Sum Yuen of Yuen Long, April 22, 2021.