In the Quang Dien area on the outskirts of Hue in central Vietnam, Nguyen Phi Truong grows nearly 10,000 Hue yellow apricot trees, 'hoang mai,' on about 5,000 square meters of field. He quit his job in the city and returned to his hometown in 2018, raising an ornamental flowering tree indispensable to Tet (the Lunar New Year) into a regional product. The local paper Dan Viet reported this on August 6, 2026.
This article, aimed at agriculture professionals and buyers interested in ornamental flowering trees and relocating to the provinces, reads out, from Truong's figures and the background of the yellow-apricot branding Hue is pursuing, the implications that can be drawn for building producing regions in Japan.
The yellow-apricot garden he started in his hometown in 2018 after quitting his city job
Truong returned to Quang Dien in Hue. The field is currently 5,000 square meters, with a plan to expand by a further 2,000 square meters. The garden's yellow apricots comprise about 7,000 seedling-class 'mai gion' and about 3,000 in other categories such as potted bonsai and shape-crafted 'mai the.' In addition there are several dozen large specimens aged several decades and more than 1,000 ground-planted trees. The potted bonsai are 3 to 10 years old, and the young seedlings 1 to 2 years old.
The goal he sets is to raise the quality of the trees, increase the variety of shapes, and build his own brand. He is trying to lift from a stage of selling volume to a stage of selling by styling and brand name.
The path of earning with ornamental flowering trees is also a contest against time. Bonsai aged 3 to 10 years and old trees decades old command a price only after that many years and that much care are laid into the land. The decision to let go of a city job and direct capital and time into long cultivation underpins the current two-tiered inventory.
What is hoang mai: the yellow flowering tree that symbolizes Hue's spring
Hoang mai (yellow apricot, mai vang) is a yellow flowering tree that adorns Tet and spring and has been tied to the old-capital culture of Hue. The native variety is characterized by thick petals, five or six in number, and a vivid yellow carrying a faint, refined fragrance. Distinguished from the common mai vang displayed at New Year in the south, the Hue product is highly rated for its form and fragrance. As Tet approaches, households and companies seek yellow apricot as a good-luck item, displaying it pot and all to enjoy through the spring. This simultaneous demand greatly sways a region's earnings for the year.
Hue (Thua Thien Hue province) is advancing a plan under the banner of 'Hue, the home of yellow apricot,' and in 2021 it launched a 'yellow apricot at the gate' movement to replant yellow apricot at every household. From Tet 2023 it has held a 'Hue Yellow Apricot Festival' every year. In 2024 yellow apricot was granted a geographical indication (GI), 'Hue,' firming up its standing as a producing region on the institutional side as well. At exhibitions, aged famed trees are sometimes valued at more than 1 billion VND (tien ti, about JPY 5.9 million) each, and the prices at the top are of a different order of magnitude.
Truong's garden in figures
Lining up the reported figures reveals a two-tiered structure: turning numbers with young seedlings and taking unit price with bonsai and old trees.
| Cultivated area | 5,000 sqm (plus 2,000 sqm planned for expansion) |
| Number of yellow apricot trees | About 7,000 seedling-class plus about 3,000 in other categories |
| Old trees and ground-planted | Several dozen large specimens aged several decades, and more than 1,000 ground-planted |
| Age of potted bonsai | 3 to 10 years old |
| Annual sales | About 400 million VND (about JPY 2.35 million) |
| Profit | 150 million to 200 million VND (about JPY 880,000-1.18 million) |
| Full-time workers | 4 people (5-6 million VND/month = about JPY 29,000-35,000) |
| Temporary workers | About 8 people (daily wage 200,000-300,000 VND = about JPY 1,200-1,800) |
Amounts are approximate, based on the dong figures in the original. Converted at about 170 VND per JPY 1, and they vary with the exchange rate.
The level of annual sales is not unusual for an ornamental-horticulture producing region. In Tu Vu, Phu Tho province, 50 bonsai farming households earn 100 million to 500 million VND per household a year on 10 hectares has grown into such a producing region, and Truong's own roughly 400 million VND fits within that band. Ornamental trees build up sales per unit area on a different yardstick from edible crops.
In gross-margin terms, a profit of 150-200 million VND against annual sales of about 400 million VND works out to roughly 40-50%. That this level can be held in a labor-intensive operation with heavy personnel costs for four full-time and eight temporary workers owes to the nature of ornamental horticulture, in which the labor of styling itself becomes the price. The time to finish a single tree turns directly into unit price.
Implications for leaving salaried work to farm and for high-value crops
What Truong's garden shows buyers and would-be farmers is three designs. The first is holding inventory in layers across different price bands. One-to-two-year seedlings sell on numbers, while 3-to-10-year bonsai and decades-old trees take the unit price. The form earns turnover with young trees and asset value with old ones.
The second is how to run a crop whose demand concentrates at a single point in the year. Yellow apricot's selling season is skewed to before Tet. The gross margin is thick, with a profit of 150-200 million VND against annual sales of about 400 million VND, because value is added through pots and styling, but the staffing of four full-time plus eight temporary workers is also built on the premise of the all-at-once shipment before Tet. The case in the same Hue of turning poor paddies into oyster mushrooms, the case of a former engineer, overlaps in the point of a career switch that abandons a city job to earn from local resources.
The third is that an individual can use the umbrella of a regional brand. The GI, the province's movement and the annual festival provide the signboard 'Hue yellow apricot,' on top of which an individual producer can establish his own brand name. The same structure holds in Japan's bonsai and flowering-tree producing regions: the order is that government or cooperatives protect the regional name, and within it producers refine their brand names.
Practical points for making an ornamental flowering tree into a regional product
Ornamental flowering trees differ from food produce in the key points of procurement. If Japanese buyers look at Vietnam's flowering-tree regions, the points to grasp are few.
- The selling season is skewed to once a year. Yellow apricot for Tet concentrates its shipments, and inventory is managed as 'trees that can go out that year' and 'trees held for several years.'
- Unit price is set by age and styling. Even for the same variety, a 1-to-2-year seedling and a decades-old tree differ by an order of magnitude, and valuation is per tree rather than by quantity.
- Brand and origin labeling support the price. With a GI or a regional movement in the background, even a young operator can establish a brand name more easily.
This structure also operates in flowering-tree exports. In Dong Nai, a young producer has increased ornamental adenium (desert rose) to several hundred varieties and is targeting the Japanese horticulture market by name. Unlike fresh fruit or processed products, for flowering trees the variety and styling become the product itself.
From a Japan-facing perspective, what is realistic is less importing the trees themselves than learning this model of regional development. Importing live ornamental plants has a high quarantine hurdle, and bringing in flowering trees with their potting soil as-is is difficult. What Hue yellow apricot shows is a design in which, even for an item whose demand peaks only once a year, a year-round business can be run through age-based inventory management and a regional brand.
Summary
Truong's yellow-apricot garden is at once a story of leaving salaried work to return home and a model of a business that holds a demand-concentrated ornamental flowering tree in layers and establishes an individual brand name under the umbrella of a regional brand. For Japan's flowering-tree and bonsai regions and for those considering a move to the provinces, Hue yellow apricot concretely shows the structure of earning by the value of one tree rather than by volume. The next chance to visit Hue, it is worth touring the garden during the pre-Tet shipping season and checking, tree by tree, how prices divide among seedlings, bonsai and old trees.
