Chiang Mai is known as 'the Rose of the North', but it really blooms into flower in February, towards the end of the cool season. Every year on the first weekend of February, the Chiang Mai Flower Festival is opened. The flower beds in public spaces all around the town are especially beautiful at this time of year. Everywhere there can be found gorgeous displays of yellow and white chrysanthemums, and the Damask Rose, a variety found only in Chiang Mai. Also, the pink and purplish Dendrobium orchids, and the yellow Daoruang.

The real focus of this Chiang Mai festival, however, is the public garden of Suan Buak Haad on the south-western corner of the moat. The road next to the moat all around the park is closed to traffic, and vendors of plants, Thailand flowers, Thailand orchids and garden decorations set up their stalls there.