Human Flower Project

Cut-Flower Trade

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Who’s Protecting Lake Naivasha?

Lake Naivasha is at the center of Kenya’s flower production, but now, despite a self-regulating flower council, the lake’s fish are dying. Can the industry adequately police itself?

Workers at one of the flower farms of the Lake Naivasha region of Kenya: horticulture employs half a million Kenyan people.
Photo: The East African

Kenya’s flower industry, after years of success that have induced many other African nations to jump into floral production, took a big hit last year. According to the East African, income in this sector was down a third last year. Flower council chief Jane Ngige reports that for “the first time in close to 20 years, the flower industry has registered negative growth.”

In the past month there’s been more bad news, the mysterious die-off of more than 1000 fish in Lake Naivasha, where the flower farms are concentrated. Both Kenyan environmentalists and now the national authorities are focussing their investigation on several flower farms, which many say have been flouting standards and polluting the lake.

From what we can tell, the flower industry is completely self-regulated in Kenya, an arrangement that has served many law-abiding farms—and their employees—well. Most Kenyan flowers sell in Europe, where there’s strong demand for produce—including flowers—that’s responsibly grown and traded. But Europe’s flower sales have steeply declined during the 18+month global economic downturn: this blotch on the reputation of Kenyan flowers couldn’t come at a worse time. As well as the health of the lake, there are a reported 500,000 jobs at stake in Kenya’s horticulture sector.

The Kenyan growers association hopes to protect its system of self-regulation (see Ngige’s editorial), but that system seems to have failed. As a native Kentuckian who’s seen what happened when coal operators policed mining, we have to ask, could the Kenyan government—or some other more independent authority—do better? Would it do better?

Friday, January 29, 2010

Growing Luck in Malaysia

Can one lottery winner inspire a new floral tradition for the lunar year? A Malaysian nurseryman chirps, yes!

In Malaysia, this variety of pedilanthus is a favorite for the lunar new year.
Photo: The Star

The lunar new year arrives late this year, February 14, but horticulturists and florists worldwide have long been preparing. Traditional plants of the celebration
include bong mai, yellow chrysanthemum, flowering plum and narcissus, all early bloomers. The trick is handling them just so they flower on the holiday itself.

This year, along with the old customs, there’s 21st century spin in the marketing of holiday plants. If Apple, Google and Scott Brown can do it, why not nurserymen?

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Monday, January 04, 2010

2010 Unfurls in India

Since wintertime is flower-rich in India, blooms are better than fireworks for the New Year’s holiday.

Bouquet makers hustle to meet demand at Kolkata’s New Market New Year’s Eve
Photo: Sandy Ao

Christmas - yes. Valentine’s Day - Oh, yes. But, no, flowers are not a big part of New Year’s festivity in the U.S., where glittery sunglasses, champagne and bottle rockets prevail.

For floraphiles, the place to be is India. “Be it for decoration or gifting, flowers are in great demand all across the city,” writes an online paper from Chennai. Express Buzz calls New Year’s blossoms “an old concept” though we don’t know how old “that continues to find favour even today with masses and classes alike.” Consequently, the flower season in India runs from mid-December all the way through mid-February.

In Chennai, roses and gladioli have been somewhat displaced by carnations, orchids, and more exotic varieties of flowers – anthriums and “even tulips.” These rarer blooms, claims florist Uttem Kumar, “express the taste and status of the sender.”

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Friday, September 18, 2009

Plants with Wheels

Noxious intruder,  romantic emblem, or prom decoration? This Russian immigrant has become synonymous with America’s Old West.

Uranium collectors, “lonely but free…”
Photo: Rob Lee

By James H. Wandersee and Renee M. Clary
EarthScholars™ Research Group

“Bloom where you’re planted” is the motto of many species, but plants actually spread—and bloom—far beyond where they first grow using a wide variety of strategies, including wind power. 

Some aeolian plants send their seeds off in gusts to seek their fortunes via cottony tufts (cattails) and parachutes (dandelions), while others employ gliders (climbing gourds) and helicopters (maple trees). Most wind-powered plants launch such “botanical aircraft” to disperse their seeds, but some plants actually make the scattering trip themselves.  We’re talking about tumbleweeds.

Tumbleweeds are globe-like, senescent (aged, dried) plants whose stems, at maturity, separate from their root systems during windy weather. Before these bushes mature, most of them are green and bushy with tiny light pink flowers, turning gray and stiff when they are ready to tumble. Then they are pushed across the terrain by the prevailing winds, scattering thousands of seeds (up to 250,000 per plant!) across the landscape as they roll.

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