Ever wondered where that supermarket bouquet of mums comes from? How about the lovely arrangement of yellow roses available at the florist for Mother’s Day or the six-pack of purple petunias at the garden center?
Their collective story is amazing.
The truth is that, today, many flowers travel far more than most people. The flowers will possibly have been to Bogota, Miami and San Francisco before ever reaching that local florist or garden center. If the destination is in Maine, the flowers could have been to Kenya, Holland and Manhattan before arriving in Portland.
Before ever reaching a florist’s shop, large numbers of people have discussed those flowers in many languages. These people can include “field workers and their supervisors, sales reps, brokers, truckers, auctioneers, wholesalers, buyers, bookkeepers and retailers,” according to Amy Stewart, author of the bestselling book “Flower Confidential.”
Floral commerce is big business, with at least $40 billion in yearly revenue, so it’s good to know the basics behind the supply chain.
The first step for any flower is breeding by knowledgeable people. This breeding can deviate from the norm and sometimes be the result of a person or company discovering a new plant through scientific research or even natural change.
An article in Fine Gardening magazine told about an eagle-eyed propagator who noticed a natural change in a plant he was growing, a cultivar of Joe Pye weed which came to be called Eutrochium dubium (“Little Joe”). Gardeners might also spy an unusually large and vigorous plant in their garden and introduce it. This happened with the Rozanne geranium (Geranium “Gerwat”), found in the garden of Donald and Rozanne Waterer and now a top-selling perennial.
Plant breeding is an international effort, but not necessarily a speedy one. Some plants can take years before they become reproductive and sent to market, especially some trees.
The next step has to do with promotion. This includes plant introduction and plant breeding agents who help with trials (i.e., tests of the plant in university fields and public gardens), as well as patenting and marketing the plant. They are like the “sports agents” for plants, as one author explained. These specialized firms make things go faster and easier for the breeder, and include expensive marketing between businesses (which the gardening public never sees).
An interesting example of one of these companies is Proven Winners, a brand owned by three leading U.S. propagators, whose sales are greater than a half billion dollars annually and whose plants are available in just about every garden center in North America. The brand has worldwide trial sites (in Europe, South American and Japan), breeder networks and giant advertising clout.
Holly Scoggins, an associate professor of horticulture at Virginia Tech, said, “Having a plant selected and promoted by PW is the horticultural equivalent of your kid being picked in the first round of the NBA draft.”
After a plant achieves a good reputation and patenting, it needs to be grown in great numbers for the public. A propagator then produces seedlings called “plugs,” loads then into boxes and ships them to a finishing grower.
This finishing grower grows the plug into a salable plant by repotting and helping it get sized up.
Once the soil, fertilizer, water and other resources are used to grow the plant to the stage where it can be sold, it will either be offered for sale by that grower or shipped to a retail outlet like a big box store or independent garden center to sell.
The road through this maze can vary for each plant. A Supertunia from Proven Winners could possibly hit every step of the network from Japan to Ecuador to Michigan to Virginia. Or, a local retail greenhouse grower could keep a stock plant like rosemary, propagate it and sell it directly to a customer.
Many flowers are globe hopping now because the focus for growing has moved from traditional U.S. growers to countries where the climates are better and costs might be lower. The new centers of production are developing countries such as Columbia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Kenya and India, as well as Israel, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia and New Zealand. Kenya supplies a large percentage of Europe’s flowers. Columbia produces and exports more than half of the flowers imported to the United States.
The United States, surprisingly, now imports 82 percent of its flowers, with Ecuador a major quality rose producer because of the desirable high altitude of its rose farms. It’s no wonder that Miami International Airport is a major horticulture hub, receiving 88 percent of all the cut flowers coming into this country.
One of the businesses impacted most by all of this is the local florist. At one time, growers sold their flowers directly to the public from nurseries or they were purchased from street vendors.
However, times have changed. When they first began in the 19th century, the florist’s role was seen as providing places where the average person could come in contact with the beauty of nature, perhaps bringing home a bouquet for enjoyment after work. Today, community florists feel at a crossroads, competing with grocery stores, drug stores, discount clubs and home improvement centers for the convenience and price of that bouquet.
Some have resorted to diversifying — selling gift wares, for instance. Many people still love the caring personal service that a neighborhood florist provides.
An interesting Rutgers study done in April 2005 found that, given a choice between a mixed bouquet of flowers, a fruit basket or a pillar candle, women who received the flowers were not only happier at the time, but the happiness lasted for days later. Flowers proved to be the better choice.
The desire to give and receive flowers certainly has never abated.
In the end, no matter what path a flower has traveled in its jet-set journey, it will ultimately bring joy. As Claude Monet remarked, “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”
