FROM midnight until 4am trading is keen and fast at the Dounan Flower Market in a suburb of Kunming, capital of the south-western province of Yunnan. Trucks laden with radiant, perfumed blooms clog the surrounding roads. By mid-morning petals litter the ground and most of the 14m stems sold each day are on their way to destinations around China and beyond. Since the local government turned a budding local enterprise into China’s biggest wholesale flower market in 1999, Dounan has become the main supplier of blooms to courting couples and contrite husbands across the country: demand fuelled by a middle-class boom.

Yunnan has rapidly emerged as China’s dominant flower-growing region. In 1994 it had a mere 133 hectares (329 acres) of flower farmland. By 2013 it had 67,400 hectares and accounted for about a third of China’s blossom exports—helped by expanding international air links in a province that was once isolated from global markets. China now accounts for more than a quarter of land worldwide devoted to growing flowers and pot plants, according to the International Association of Horticultural Producers, a trade association based in Switzerland.

China is not yet a global flower-power. Its exports amount to a little over 4% of the world’s total flower trade by value. Over two-thirds of the blooms it sends abroad are sold in Asia. (Myanmar is the biggest buyer.) Freight costs are a barrier to expansion into the more lucrative markets of Europe and America.

But the adoption of Western tastes is helping to cultivate demand at home. Roses, though not traditionally a symbol of love in China, are the most commonly grown flower. Valentine’s Day far surpasses China’s own lovers’ day (which this year falls on August 20th) as a generator of sales. As February 14th approaches the wholesale price of roses doubles, according to the Kunming International Flower Auction Centre. This year it may rise even more steeply, thanks to a joyous coincidence: Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year five days later and International Women’s Day on March 8th (which Chinese often mark by giving bouquets) fall within three weeks of each other. Life for Dounan’s floriculturalists is indeed a bed of roses.