They are ‘just as sweet’
Ever wonder just where those flowers you got your significant other for Valentine’s Day came from?
Steve Iseman, the flower buyer for local flower wholesaler Roses and More, knows exactly. Every morning he begins his day by checking what he has in his coolers and checking weather forecasts – in Ecuador, Colombia and around the world.
For the past few weeks he has been watching these forecasts very closely to make sure the latest crop of roses, carnations and a dozen other kinds of flowers will be ready for Valentine’s Day, the biggest flower-giving holiday of the year.
This year the weather gods have been kind. The crops were ready to ship at just the right time.
Today, cut flowers can come from dozens of regions around the world but predominantly from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and California, says Bob Hamacher, owner of Roses and More. It wasn’t always that way, though.
As little as 25 years ago, Spokane was home to a number of greenhouses that grew flowers including roses and orchids for the local market. If the flowers did come from outside the region, they were from California or maybe Florida.
The local cut-flower growing industry, along with most of the American industry, died with rising energy costs incurred to heat huge greenhouses during our cold and dark northern winters.
Local greenhouse growers were getting energy bills up to $25,000 a month, says Hamacher. And this was before the recent energy cost increases.
The advent of fast, efficient and climate-controlled air freight that gave access to southern climates where flowers can be grown year-round, made it possible to bring perishable flowers in from seemingly far away places. “For what somebody (local) would sell me a rose, I can actually get it cut and delivered to me for less money (from Colombia),” says Hamacher. So the industry moved south.
If that bouquet you sent today came from South America, it had an interesting trip. First, flower buyer Iseman compared his orders from local florists with his weather and harvest reports from South America and placed his orders with his Miami broker. The flowers were then cut, packaged and flown on a refrigerated Air Lima flight to the broker’s warehouse in Miami – all in less than two days. In Miami, they cleared very tight agricultural and general customs and were then put on a refrigerated truck for the five-day trip to Spokane.
Once the flowers reach wholesalers like Roses and More, they are trimmed, set in deep buckets of water with special preservatives and maintained in more refrigerated storage. Within a matter of hours, the retail florists pick up their flowers and have them in their shop ready for your order.