Human Flower Project

Cut-Flower Trade

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Altitude Fear & Latitude Envy

The saturated colors of mountain flowers are legendary, but are they worth an anxiety attack? We search for a flatter alternative.

Ryuzu falls and mountain flowers, 1997
Nikko National Park, Japan
Photo: Kohei Tanaka

We are alpi-phobic…Something about having grown up on the banks of a huge, sluggish river, maybe, or hearing one too many Appalachian folk songs where a woman’s dragged into the hills and smashed in the head with a rock. For us, just the idea of driving “into the mountains” tightens the throat.

After reading about flower color today, though, we have reason to overcome this neurosis.  EarthScholars Jim Wandersee and Renee Clary wrote in their essay on the floral spectrum several months back: “More vivid colors are seen in cooler stands of flowers growing in places like Alaska. The intensely bright fuchsia of fireweed flowers makes driving Alaskan highways ‘a journey into the Land of Oz.’”

Gentians, in Bhutan
Photo: Nancy Holyoke

Nancy Holyoke sent us a photo of gentians she spotted in Bhutan, a blue the likes of which we’ve never seen on even the most psychedelic morning glory. Wouldn’t this be worth suffering through the claustrophobic shudder that steep slopes bring on?

Like a lot of folks, in and out of lederhosen, we’d assumed that tropical flowers (like the hibiscus blooms you see on Hawaiian shirts) were the brightest of all, but that’s not so. “Twelve years of observation among the vegetation of the eastern and western tropics,” wrote A.R. Wallace, “has convinced me that this notion (of more colorful tropicals) is entirely erroneous.”

“The beauty of alpine flowers,” Wallace noted, “is almost proverbial. It consists either in the increased size of the individual flowers, as compared with the whole plant, in the increased intensity of color, or in the massing of small flowers into dense cushions of bright color. It is only on the higher alps above the limits of frosts, and upward towards the perpetual snow line that these colors are fully exhibited.” We have a sick headache.

Another 19th century botanist, “M. Flahault in going north from France noticed in Zeeland that many flowers had already brighter colors. In Norway the colors of nearly all flowers were brighter, and he gives a list of 16 native and 12 cultivated plants in which this difference was especially marked. He also caused seeds of 14 species to be sown the same season in Paris and at Upsal in Sweden, with the result in each case but one of brighter colors in the northern locality.”

-- from Arthur Alger Crozier’s opus: “The Modification of Plants by Climate (1885)

We’d brave quite a lot to see intensely beautiful flowers, but before we invest in hiking boots, there may be another way.

An inkling came in a note this morning from our cousin, painter Melinda Waring. “All you artists out there,” she wrote, “will understand, when I say an overcast day has more light than a sunny day.” And then we retrieved this long treasured post card of Van Gogh’s bulb field

Flower Beds in Holland
by Vincent van Gogh (1883)
Image: National Gallery of Art

The sapphire blues, golds, whites (and one patch of lavender) are brighter for the two brown barns anchoring each side of the painting, a fringe of dark hills in the distance, and the very cloudy skies.

For a more contemporary view of the same phenomenon, here’s a photo from the Dutch government.

A tulip field, with lilies and narcissus in Northern Holland
Photo: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

This region of Northern Holland is of course one of the most popular floral tourist attractions all year, anywhere in the world. Even though Holland’s tulip bulb industry is dwindling (gradually migrating from the Netherlands to Poland and facing competition from China), The Keukenhof, in Lisse, still draws 700, 000 visitors each year. The tulip season there is just winding down.

Could it be that the qualities Wallace attributed to alpine height were really the effects of distance from the equator, of northerliness – of perception? Certainly the EarthScholars’ example of color intensity, Alaskan fireweed, could help make that case. As could M. Flahaut’s investigations, Paris to “Upsal.”

As a flower lover, we will trek for color. But as a flatlander, we’d like to begin our quest for intensity via latitude (and cloud cover) rather than by taking on altitude. Let’s keep in mind the Dutch, including Vincent.  Instead of boots, we’ll buy a locket and fold in it this heartening observation from the mighty Felder Rushing, a fellow Southerner, likewise in search of more vivid flowers:

Holland is “farther north than Nova Scotia…. The angle of the sun is so low way up there, colors get ‘punched up’ and seem more vivid than they do in our muggy heat, which washes out a lot of the blue and green. Same thing in England, New England and British Columbia. Because of the climate, many plants grow better. And because of the angle of the sun, they simply look better.”

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Proto-Peony Pilgrim, at Ashland

Too early for the flower show, but just in time for a zillion blinking buds.

Cyndy Clark overlooks the heavily budded peony bed
at Ashland, the Henry Clay home, Lexington, KY
Photo: Human Flower Project

Religious pilgrims go in certainty; they know the saint’s fingerbone, kept in a golden box since the second century, will be there at the cathedral, whenever they arrive. It’s floral pilgrims who need faith or, short of that, an open-mind. The forsythia’s over, and so are the weeping cherries, but you had forgotten about lilacs. The peonies aren’t in their glory, but the buds are.

With friend and gardener Cyndy Clark, we made our pilgrimage to the big peony garden at Ashland, a historic home in Lexington, Kentucky, one week ago. Only five or six beautiful clumps were flowering; most of the garden was leafy and covered with huge plump buds.

Bud with juice, and bloom, Ashland, Lexington, KY
Photo: Human Flower Project

The Garden Club of Lexington installed the bricklined peony beds in 1986. “Dozens of Saunders hybrid peonies were donated by Bobbi Van Meter in honor of her mother, Alice McIlvain Prewitt, owner of Walmac Farm.” Mrs. Prewitt had been a longtime member of the club, which maintains the walled garden at Ashland, too.

A.P. Sauders was an early peony hybridizer from Canada.  We wish we could tell you names of these particular cultivars, in bud and in bloom, but we found no tags anywhere (it really wouldn’t be in keeping with Lexington style, you know).

Now about those buds…Some, tight and green, looked like brussell sprouts – has anyone ever eaten one and can account for how they taste? Others buds were blinking, “tears” at the edge of chartreuse, pink, and wine-purple eyes. A few more had cracked like eggs, with pink, cupped feathers lifting open.

True peony lovers know that different varieties open at different times through the season (generally early May through early July). For the peony gluttons out there (count us in!) here’s a website that purports to offer a seven week cycle of flowers, with varieties grouped by their bloom dates. Florists are intensely interested in the habits of peony buds, too, as these prized cut-flowers ship at bud stage.

The most curious feature of the Ashland peony garden is what’s NOT there – ants – even though many hundreds of buds were secreting shiny syrup.

Our mother’s peonies in Louisville have always had ants circumnavigating the buds. We’d thought that ants were somehow good for these flowers. (Peony buds attract wasps, too.)

Ants aplenty on Anne Ardery’s peonies, in Louisville, Kentucky
Photo: Human Flower Project

“The garden myth is that peonies need ants on them in order for the buds to open properly,” wrote Hanna at This Garden is Illegal, in May 2006. “This is not true. A peony bud will open just as well with or without the ants.” She goes on to write that the ants do prey on other insects that can be harmful to peonies. So perhaps it’s “mythological” in the best sense: true, but not widely understood.

One of the early Saunders peonies at Ashland, April 27, 2008
Photo: Human Flower Project

Today we imagine that Ashland’s garden is in full blowsy flower, swarming with people. Henry Clay, the Kentucky politician who once lived here, is famous for telling his fellow U.S. Senators: “I had rather be right than president.”

REALLY, Henry? Well, you got at least half your wish. Loving the garden in bud, we can’t go so far as preference. We had rather found the peonies in bloom.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Mullickghat Rises from Its Ashes

Sandy Ao takes us to Kolkata’s huge flower market, destroyed by fire Friday night, back in business by Saturday.

The shops of more than two hundred flower sellers
burned Friday night in Kolkata, India
Photo: Sandy Ao

Fire broke out Friday night, April 11, at the immense Mullickghat flower market in Kolkata, India.  Eighteen fire engines were called to the scene along the Hoogly River, as blazes swept down Strand Road, charring more than 200 – nearly all – of the market’s flowers stalls.

The fire destroyed the 125-year Mullickghat just before the Bengali New Year, a huge floral occasion. For decades the largest flower market in all Asia (though now surpassed by the sales center in Delhi ), Mullickghat both served local customers in this city of 13 million people and exported the region’s tuberoses, marigolds, gladioli and scores more varieties to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Boys survey the remains of the market on April 12
Photo: Sandy Ao

Merinews reported Saturday, “About 2,000 flower growers from the districts visited the market daily to sell their produce”—a number that doubled around major festivals and during India’s wedding season, which is now beginning.  “The livelihood of 25,000 people has been affected.”

The Thai Indian interviewed Ramesh Kundu, a flower seller whose place of business was wiped out. “Each one of us has suffered a loss of minimum Rs.80,000 (roughly $2000 USD). With Bengali New Year on April 14 we had stocked four times more flowers than usual. Now this fire has turned us into beggars.”

Sandy Ao, who alerted us to the tragedy, has posted an amazing album of her photographs and a moving account of many experiences in the market on her weblog. She also generously shared many photographs and thoughts with us.

“The fire was around the Lady’s bathing ghat,” Sandy writes. “One cannot stop imagining that it is a case of arson; that’s what I heard people in the market hissing about.” Newspaper accounts confirm that many in Kolkata suspect the fire was set intentionally. The Statesman reports charges that the ruling party may have arranged to have Mullickghat destroyed to make way for an immense, modern (and expensive) structure that’s been on the drawing board for years.

Sudhangshu Sil, the local member of Parliament, was quick to announce: “The greatest consolation is (that) in February the Calcutta Municipal Corporation sanctioned the plan for a three-storey building with basement here, which will rehabilitate the 5,000 flower traders and be India’s first flower auction centre.”

Flower vendors make do after Friday’s fire in Kolkata
Photo: Sandy Ao

Sandy Ao says that arson fires tend to be Kolkata’s prelude to “improvement” projects; considering the horrors undertaken in the U.S., the razing of whole downtown neighborhoods, in the name of “urban renewal,” why should we be surprised?

Planners of the new flower complex say that it will include cold storage, facilities for sorting, grading and packaging flowers, laboratories for extracting flower oil, and lodgings. As proposed, the air-conditioned complex would be a far cry from the century-old street market. Centered around the Lady Ghat near the river’s Howrah Bridge, Mullickghat has been a traditional open-air venue. Before the fire there were more than two hundred small structures for vendors, but according to Sandy, many hundreds more flower sellers strung garlands and sold their calotropis and roses from bags and baskets below the bridge, along Strand Road and all around the edges.

“The official report was that Mullickghat had been completely gutted,” Sandy writes.  “Actually there are 265 odd shops/stalls as recorded in the Mullickghat Society book, each paying Rs.130/-per month as rent to be recorded as legal flower dealers here,
 whereas the other groups of flower dealers who do not own any stalls/shops pay Rs.7/- each per day to the society. 
And these groups are the backbone of Mullickghat.
 I should say 95% of the thousand flower sellers are made up of these groups.”

Is affection for the old open-air market and grief at the idea its replacement by modern facilities all stupid romanticism? It’s easy to relish the excitement of this place at a remove, through Sandy’s images, but what about withstanding the rainy season here, or enduring summer days, as roses wilt through the afternoon? Maybe the new flower complex would be better for everyone.

One of the Mullickghat flower shop owners who lost his business in the fire
Photo: Sandy Ao


“I got some feedback from some of the young Kolkatans,” Sandy writes, “They too express their skepticism about this new modern flower market in Mullickghat. You know, we have had so many such plans and projects. All took off the ground with grandeur, but all resulted in flop projects. In our point of view, this has become a golden opportunity for the greedy officials/politicians to dig their fingers into this goldmine.” She asks, 
“Who will rent the shops in this new facility?  Who will need such facility?
 Who will manage it?”

Even if public funds really are all diverted to the new building, Sandy offers some reasons why it isn’t needed – or even wanted – here.

“Most of the flowers they deal in at this market are related to some religious purposes.
 (Remember, each of the gods/goddesses has no less than 108 names!  In fact, with only 365 days a year, it’s hard to hold all the pujas and the rituals!) The flowers required for all these gods/goddesses are local products. Who will need cold storage for marigolds, tuberoses, tulsi, hibiscus, bael leaves, roses, sunflowers, cockscomb, daisies, jasmine, magnolia, lotus… all of which are hardy?” she asks. “Besides, most of these flowers get sold off within 24 hours!”

Doling out marigold and jasmine flowers after the fire
Photo: Sandy Ao

Exports from Mullickghat have been suspended for the next week, but there does appear to be a heavy trade in exported flowers, in addition to the strong local market Sandy describes. Perhaps it’s this more international end of the Kolkata flower trade that the new building is designed to serve.

Sandy raises questions about the operation of such a facility, if plans move ahead. “How will it be managed? as we are incapable of managing anything where strict discipline is required!
 We must remember, the Bengalis believe they are the image of Lord Shiva, who is the creator and the destroyer… But never the preserver!!!

 We have had many projects which ended being some monsters/eye-sores of Kolkata.”

If it is ultimately built, will the new market be a success? Our friend doubts it.

“At this moment we are having daily power-cuts —that, too, in 38.8C weather conditions. The real summer is yet to come. Where will the electricity come from to facilitate the cold storage?
 Nuclear energy? Not a chance, for our Left Party is not going to accept the Central Government’s signing the Nuclear Treaty.
 I can already see how this modern flower market is going to take shape in this summer heat: Then we’ll see the magic of Mullickghat’s flower power!”


The morning after the fire, Sandy took her camera to the market she’s photographed many times before. 
“A few of the stall owners simply sat there speechless. One of them, the supplier, told me his loss is unaccountable. Above all they lost the good season to do business within these two days; for Monday is the Bengali New Year. I too became speechless. I smelled burnt wood in the midst of the roses. I guess this smell will stay with me for a long time.

“Nothing seemed to be right, for the weather was very humid, dull and hot. 
But I was having hope in my heart that Mullickghat is not completely destroyed.
 And when I saw the crowd near the footbridge, my spirit lifted up!” Sandy said there were even more shoppers than on an ordinary Saturday. 
”I told myself ‘Good!  Mullickghat is still standing strong. I guess we Indian are the survivors.’”

Back in the business of lotus buds and marigolds, April 12, 2008
Photo: Sandy Ao

The Kolkata newspaper also reported that by Saturday, scores of the vendors were doing buisiness, their fresh marigolds and tuberoses arrayed on the ashes.

“People of this country have seen how many civilizations come and go,” Sandy writes. “Everything has its present, future and its past. In due course, Mullickghat will have a modern building for selling flowers, but the people will still put up their usual stalls around the building and sell their fresh marigolds, roses, calotropis, tuberoses, magnolia, bael leaves...like what they have been doing for the last 125 years.
 Those who want to rent a shop in the modern market can go ahead and rent a shop there. The other 95% of flower sellers will carry on doing their flower business in the normal way that they are doing now. It may not be exactly same like before, but it will not vanish either. If the government tries to stop them, they will use the mass-power to fight for their right. After all, in Kolkata we are very much aware of the effects of the mass-power! Otherwise Kolkata would not be known as the city of bandhs/strikes!!”


Religious observances go on Saturday, April 12, in Kolkata
with floral offerings to Shiva at the temple by the Mullickghat market
Photo: Sandy Ao


The city’s forensic experts have concluded that Mullickghat’s fire began when a fuel canister ignited at the Lady Ghat. Local officials say that the flower sellers – those with shops, anyway --will be compensated for their losses, and promise that the modern Mullickghat building, long delayed, will proceed.

But Sandy writes about the present:
”I see devotees still crowding the nearby temple offering the flowers to the gods with the same faith in their faces....And today I saw how they made beautiful calotropis garlands for Shiva to welcome the New Year.”


Thursday, March 27, 2008

Hallmark Quits the Flower Business

The first name in U.S. greeting cards—and PG-rated TV dramas—has not done so well selling flowers.

“When you care enough to send the very best….” To the breast-beating motto of the Hallmark card company, we now add: “When you know enough to get out of flower retailing....”

Hallmark has done just that. The company announced that it will stop “its direct-to-consumer flowers and gifts business by the end of April.”
 
Hallmark Flowers began as a pilot retailing program in 1999, launching in 2001 and mailing out its first catalogue in 2005. The company marketed flowers and other gifts through both the catalogue and a website. Jennifer Mann, reporting for Hallmark’s hometown paper the Kansas City Star, quotes company spokesperson Julie O’Dell: ““Basically, we have taken a close, thorough look at the current competitive marketplace — particularly for flowers — and our business model and have determined that the investments we needed to make to keep those businesses running and profitable simply couldn’t guarantee the results we needed.”

Does that mean margins were too low, postal rates too high (Hallmark Flowers mailed a whopping eight catalogues to customers last year), or flower sales are declining? Or could it be that the greeting card giant never understood flowers as gifts?

We have no inside scoop, but we do know that buying greeting cards and buying flowers are very different. And while Hallmark knows a thing or ten thousand about the former, that knowledge might have botched their efforts with the latter.

When we shop for a greeting card (being too lazy to make one ourselves), we know we’ll have to settle for something generic – “Sympathy” “Uncle Birthday” “Baby Shower” or, preferably, “Blank.” It’s our lucky day if we find one card that doesn’t resort to a joke about farting or a photo of porpoises. And if it’s not our lucky day, well, it’s the thought that counts.

But with flowers, generic will not do. We’re always looking for something fresh and explicitly personal. We’ll try the patience of any florist insisting on shasta daisies over gerberas, blue delphinium not purple, sweetheart roses rather than the long stemmed kind….

Online flower sellers and catalogues aren’t evil, they just have no way to offer nuance or serendipity. Also, when the catalogue goes to press, in January, there’s no way to know whether the white larkspur available March 27th will be raggedy or heavenly, or not white at all but pink.

Hallmark had built a “state of the art” flower-handling facility near Memphis, where ProFlowers and 1-800-Flowers also have distribution centers. Now, unfortunately, 100 people there in Southaven, Tennessee, and in Kansas City will lose their jobs.  We wish them something better. Otherwise we consider the demise of Hallmark Flowers to be good news and good business. Ease up on the farting jokes, people, and keep on doing what you do “very best.”

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Today’s Hawaiian Lei (Kiss Not Included)

Competition from Asian growers and airport security are stifling Hawaii’s famed floral greeting.

Mr. and Mrs. Mainland Get a Blast of Aloha
Image: art.com

In the late 1800s, visiting Hawaii meant sloshing over hundreds of ocean miles: The Boat Days, they call it in the islands. To be greeted with a lei after braving the seas (or before, if one were headed back to the mainland) seems to have caught on quickly, an indelible tourist experience that swiftly became part of travelers’ expectations and tour guides’ provisions. Lore grew around the lei custom, too:

“It was said if a departing visitor tossed their lei into the ocean and it floated back to the beach, it meant that the person would someday return to the islands. Hundreds of leis could be seen floating in the crystal waters off of Diamond Head as a ship steamed away.” (Anyone who finds this too sentimental, please break a brick with your head!)

Lei Vendors in Honolulu
Photo: via art.com

The University of Hawaii has posted a brief history of the lei tradition based around interviews with Honolulu lei vendors. It notes, “By the turn of the (20th) century, the lei industry was well established in Honolulu. Hawaiian lei sellers — generally women — were visible on the sidewalks of downtown Honolulu in the area of Hotel, Maunakea, and Kekaulike streets.” Travel to the islands swelled in the late 1920s, as Matson Navigation Company began luxury liner service between California and Honolulu.  The lei sellers, picking flowers from their own yards and local farms, strung garlands and brought them to the waterfront on steamer days (usually twice monthly). With the beginnings of air travel in the 1940s, some moved to the airport, selling their flowers from the backs of trucks.

“(We) had all these jalopies. We just build a stand on. No more electricity over there. Just a dark road and don’t even have street lights. What we have is gas lanterns. We hang it onto the stand. This is how it started,” said seller Harriet Kauwe.

And today? Hawaiian tourists have come to expect the lei greeting. And it’s still provided though the circumstances, the vendors and the flowers themselves are changing fast. Most of the lei sellers on Maunakea Street today are Filipino women, not Hawaiians. Nearly all lei greetings take place not at the shining waterfront or even the airport gate. Instead, airport regulations require “greeting companies” to station representatives in the baggage area holding out signs with passengers’ names (limousine-service style). One company explains: “After deplaning, clients should recognize their name sign. In the traditional way of saying Aloha, a lei, specially selected from one of our four service categories, will then be presented” (we’re not sure if a kiss comes with that).

Shirley Magaoay, a lei vendor born in the Philippines
at her shop on Maunakea St., Honolulu
Photo: Olivier Koning

Also, it’s likely that the flowers looped around your neck will not be Hawaiian. The state’s annual summary of the flower and nursery business found that Hawaii-grown lei flowers had been steeply declining for several years. Production of plumeria, creamy yellow and highly favored for leis, was down by half from 2002. Cultivation of pikake (Jasminum sambac), a pearly and more traditional lei flower in the islands, was down even more. “In 2002, nine growers sold 81,000 (pikake) blossoms valued at $242,000. In 2006, five growers sold 23,000 flowers worth $60,000.” Carnation and tuberose production in Hawaii has sunk also.

What’s happened? As on the mainland, U.S. flower farmers can’t beat the cheap labor costs in Latin America. And Hawaiian growers find themselves in added competition with farms in Japan and Thailand. Not only were total blooms and revenues down between 2002 and 2006, so was the acreage dedicated to lei flower production. (You can find the whole report here.) We’d suppose that as in much of the rest of the U.S., flower growing simply doesn’t look like the most lucrative use of land, especially so in Hawaii where there’s not much of it and demand for a piece of paradise is high.

The one exception in this decline of locally grown lei flowers seems to be the orchid Miss Joaquim Vanda, a splashy purple and white blossom hugely popular in the 1930s that’s making a comeback. This flower doesn’t travel well, so Hawaiian blooms can still dominate the market.  “To make a vanda lei requires somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 flowers,” said Richard Criley, horticulturist at University of Hawaii. “Of course, the old-style lei, the flat one, which uses only the principal lip petals, requires many, many more flowers. That would account for the increase right there.”

But Criley also believes that lei sales generally have fallen off. Perhaps Hawaii, more accessible now than ever, is also less exotic, and a fresh garland has a whiff of absurdity. All the new rules at U.S. airports have made greetings clumsy, too. “There used to be a whole slew of people waiting by the gates with lei in hand. Now, you have to wait at the baggage area, which isn’t as easy,” he says. No matter how much slack guitar music they pipe in, blinking alarms, Hertz and drug hounds, moving walkways and conveyor belts are mighty low in Aloha.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Sheep, Sex, Shipping: Valentine’s ‘08

Consumer frenzy, love policing, and labor rights hug the headlines February 14th.

A shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, sets the mood for sweethearts
Photo: Chaiwat Subprasom, for Reuters

Hallmark holiday? We prefer to think of Valentine’s as comic, an invitation to lighten up on everybody and see the redbud on bare February branches.
Here’s some floral news confetti.

NEW ZEALAND: Tessa Laird writes that a florist in Wellington is boycotting red roses this Valentine’s Day. Jeanie McCafferty, owner of Next Stop Earth, contends that demand for red roses in February drives prices six times higher than normal—or even tolerable. On an average day in Wellington, a dozen red roses sells for about $10, but with demand so high at Valentine’s, they go for about $65. “You can get a fantastic bunch of flowers from us for that price,” McCafferty says. McCafferty also refuses to deliver flowers to workplaces on Valentines “as it put pressure on her staff and couriers.” She recommends that everybody postpone their flower-buying till March.

Tessa’s reaction: “I like it!” But Tessa, Jeanie, we don’t understand. Without excess, without irrationality, without “stress,” where’s the magic juju? We and hundreds of frantic florists will be interested to hear how Next Stop Earth fares.

At Maridadi flower company in Naivasha, Kenya, a worker loads red
roses from a greenhouse, February 9
Photo: Simon Maina, for AFP

KENYA: Widespread violence after national elections here disrupted flower production—and a whole lot more. In Naivasha, where most of the Kenya’s flower farms are concentrated, homes were burned and people were massacred last month. The “flower farms were relatively untouched but no one showed up to pick the roses and hypericum at Wildfire Flowers the next day, or the day after.” Flower companies hustled to get back in operation, phoning workers to reassure them that the factories were safe, then sending “runners out to homes” to convince workers to return. It appears that long days of flower production and shipping resumed in time to meet heavy demand in Europe. Kenyan companies “have flown flowers to Nairobi or directly to Europe rather than risk impromptu roadblocks. Those that go by road move in daily truck convoys protected by police.”

Sting Ray, be mine!
A special Valentine’s treat at Tokyo’s Sunshine Aquarium
Photo: Itsuo Inouye, for AP

JAPAN: The Sunshine International Aquarium celebrates Valentines all month long. Throughout February, there are special events with a Valentine’s theme.  At left, an aquarium staffer brings an underwater yummy to a ray on February 2 (maybe Ground Hog Day needs renaming).

COLOMBIA: Some 60% of cut flowers sold in the U.S. are imported from Colombia. Just two days ago, eleven religious leaders from the U.S. signed and sent a letter to the president of Dole Fresh Flowers, the largest flower company in Colombia, asking that the corporation permit workers to unionize.

“These workers report that they organized independent unions in order to address concerns about low wages, long hours, high productivity quotas, humiliation by management, and health problems associated with repetitive motion and over-exposure to pesticides,” reads in part the letter to David DeLorenzo, Dole Flowers’ CEO. The religious leaders, brought together by U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project, urge Dole to permit the latest union effort at its La Fragancia plantation to move forward (Dole closed its Splendor operation last year, where flower workers had been successful in building a union).

INDIA: Fundamentalists, both Hindu and Muslim, have tried to suppress romantic tokens at Valentine’s Day here, but in Bangalore, street vendors of roses have been doing brisk business. A flower seller in Raipur, though, says sales of flowers and cards, too, are just one quarter of what they were in 2007. Religious ethics aren’t to blame.  “Today’s youth, armed with a high disposable income, is buying the most expensive cards and gifts in addition to spending it on eating out,” said an executive of Archies, a card and gift company.

TAIWAN: A survey of women in Taipei, published this week, showed that 70% of Taiwanese men thought their lady friends wanted flowers for Valentine’s Day. However, 92%of the women surveyed “said they would prefer other gifts, such as chocolates or even a marriage proposal.” The research was conducted by an environmental group called Green Sense, which urges the public to buy potted plants instead of cut flowers (marriage offers being out of most people’s price range.)

Sheep nosh on red carnations, flowers that an Israeli embargo
prevented from leaving Gaza
Photo: Reuters

PALESTINE: Flower growers in Gaza have resorted to feeding their carnations to livestock. An Israeli “lockdown” in the area ruled by Hamas has meant that farmers have been stuck with their harvest, unable to export this Valentine’s season. “I apologise to the lovers on the day of their love because I cannot bring flowers to them,” Ziad Hejazi says. “Our flowers have become food for the sheep.”

THAILAND: A poll in Thailand revealed that 1 in four teenagers celebrates Valentine’s Day by having sex (without indicating what rates on an ordinary Thursday might be.) “Police plan to swoop on motels, malls and parks to ensure youths behave themselves on the ‘Day of Love.’”

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Miami’s Big ‘Oh’:  A World of Orchids

Orchid-fans, you shoulda been there, but if you weren’t, Greg Allikas offers a fine show-and-tell of the 19th World Orchid Conference in Miami. Thank you, Greg!

Lc. Mona Pink ‘Hiromi,’ one star of the recent world orchid show in Miami, Florida
Photo: Greg Allikas

By Greg Allikas

True orchid devotees try to attend at least one World Orchid Conference in their lifetimes. A very few have attended most or all of them! Since 1954 these events—bringing together the global human-orchid community—have taken place in a different country every three years. The last one was held in Dijon, France, and the next will be in Singapore. But this year it was Miami, Florida’s turn, a dazzling orchid spectacular for South Floridians and their guests from around the world.

In five days, January 23-27, the 19th World Orchid Conference delighted and educated thousands of visitors. Two of South Florida’s most vital orchid societies—The South Florida Orchid Society of Miami, and the Fort Lauderdale Orchid Society—co-hosted the event. (Robert Fuchs, the current WOC president, and Ken Kone served as co-chairs). Both groups have held their own annual orchid shows, which are among the finest and largest in the U.S. so there was an ample pool of experienced talent to draw on for this major undertaking. Volunteers from all of South Florida and many local orchid societies pitched in with crews before and during the event.

Walking through the doors, visitors were face to face with the mountainous Grand Champion exhibit by R.F Orchids of Homestead, Florida.  This wall of flowering orchid plants featured purple Vanda hybrids on one side and white Phalaenopsis on the other. Its antique props a 150-year old cart at front and a Burmese offering temple at back, featured special orchids.

Reserve Champion Exhibit by Kruss-Smith Orchids, Apopka, Florida
Photo: Greg Allikas

The Reserve Champion exhibit was created by Krull-Smith Orchids of Apopka, Florida. This 1000 sq. ft. Japanese-inspired garden featured a Phalaenopsis “cherry tree” and bridge over a “river” of scarlet Phragmipedium besseae flowers. Frank Smith’s superb culture of slipper orchids was evident throughout the exhibit and won the Grand Champion plant award for Paphiopedilum Michael Koopowitz ‘Krull-Smith’ AM/AOS.

Directly behind Krull-Smith was Singapore Botanic Gardens’ stunning exhibit. Created mostly with cut flowers, a silk-draped tea house served as a focal point. The exhibit from South Africa featured plants that were all Disa species or hybrids—a beautiful genus of scarlet, pink or yellow flowers not often seen in the U.S.  Their culture is difficult and requires constant moisture supplied by cool water. A beautiful and inspiring exhibit of diverse soecies was presented by Andy’s Orchids from California, Many exhibits provided creative ideas for displaying orchids, but overall, the flowers were the stars here!

The logistics of shipping orchid plants and flowers halfway across the world for five days of display can be complicated. Take, for example, the participants from Ecuador. Their exhibit was beautifully conceived: against 20’ tall photographic banners of the country’s two main habitats, the orchid plants were to be set in small trees and mossy banks. But because of paperwork difficulties getting the plants out of Ecuador, the orchids sat in boxes for two extra days in less than ideal conditions. When they arrived in Miami, more than half of the orchid flowers had faded. Dispirited but undaunted, the group salvaged what they could and borrowed unused plants from other exhibitors. They did what they came to do…create a beautiful orchid exhibit!

Paphiopedilum Michael Koopowitz, Grand Champion Orchid Plant, 19th WOC
Photo: Greg Allikas

A World Orchid Conference offers the best opportunities for buying new and unusual orchid plants, and the 19th WOC was no exception. Whether you were just shopping for a few plants to decorate your home or for a recently discovered species from distant jungles, you could probably find them at the 19th World Orchid Conference. Fabric wares, crystal, jewelry, glasswork, photography, painting and arts & crafts could be purchased in the second level mart area, where the art and photography contests were also on display.

Billed as the largest orchid show in the U.S., rivaled only by shows in Tokyo and Taiwan, the Miami event featured over 100 exhibits of orchids and orchid-related arts, crafts and supplies. This was the first time a WOC had been held in the U.S. since the 11th show—in 1984, also in Miami.  The attraction for locals was mainly the orchid show itself, but many orchidists, some who traveled across the globe, came for the educational opportunities. Four days of concurrent lectures offered topics to appeal to the scientist or the casual orchid hobbyist. These triennial events provide a forum for the leading experts and orchid researchers to exchange information and compare notes. For some of them, the show itself is just a venue to meet and network.

From all who attended the 19th World Orchid Conference, there were few complaints, many comments of high praise, and too many special moments to mention. (The official 19th WOC Proceedings, available this summer, will include photos of the trophy and medal winners, social events including the Tropical Night Gala, Preview Party and show, and abstracts of all the presented lectures. The proceedings can be ordered online at the 19th WOC website.) As beautiful and compelling as our favorite flowers can be, what makes the worldwide orchid community so satisfying is the people. Make plans to attend the 20th World Orchid Conference in Singapore in 2011 and experience the beauty of orchids and the warmth of our gracious hosts!

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Myrrh: Wisely Given for Epiphany

The Gospel of Matthew records that the kings who came to Bethlehem to honor the birth the Jesus brought myrrh. What made the resin of an East African shrub a good baby gift?

Adoration of the Magi (detail)
by Pieter Bruegel (1564)
National Gallery of London

According to Christian tradition, a group of powerful and scholarly men arrived in Bethlehem January 6th to pay their respects to the tiny Messiah. They brought presents. In lieu of flowers—roses wouldn’t have fared well on the long trip—they offered gold and two aromatic plant products, frankincence and myrrh.

Myrrh (excellent SCRABBLE word for the vowelless) is actually resin from Commiphora myrrha, a plant native to Somalia (though the secretions of other varieties of Commiphora apparently go under this name, too). Ducts and cavities in the plant’s bark become filed with ”a granular secretion which is freely discharged” either from natural fissures or “when the bark is wounded.... It flows as a pale yellow liquid, but hardens to a reddish-brown mass.” Unsavory as all this sounds, the gummy result is myrrh, a substance prized since 2000 B.C.. Being exotic, it made a fitting gift for a god, but not for its rarity alone....

Commiphora myrrha
Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen
Image: Caliban

It is hard for most of us to imagine how stinky ancient times were. Personal hygiene was rudimentary; as for Christ’s nursery, there were no mobiles or changing tables—Mary and Joseph were camping out in a barn. Anything that could overpower stench would have been precious. And myrrh can do that. Its fragrance is strong, and as the Christmas carol says, ”bitter." The ancient Egyptians used the resin in embalming; Jewish communities used it to anoint corpses.

Because of its association with death, myrrh was also a symbolic gift, an intimation of the Christ child’s destiny at the cross. Likewise, the plant’s thorns and slashes made in Commiphora’s bark to extract myrrh point to the Passion story. Myrrh granules are even referred to as “tears.” This may be the saddest present ever opened at a baby shower.

In addition to its honorific and symbolic character, myrrh also possessed practical value. It has long been used medicinally—to treat wounds, aid digestion, cure infections of syphilis and leprosy, and even promote menstruation. Hmm, maybe myrrh wasn’t for Jesus after all, but Mary.

Though the market for Baby Savior gifts is small today (also, the number of Magi consumers), Ethiopia exports over 70 tons of myrrh annually. “Tears” of Commiphora myrrh are used in perfumes, food flavorings, mouthwash, and adhesives. And its flowers? Here’s a lovely photo, not taken in January we’d presume, of Commiphora abyssinica as it blossoms.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Yin Yang Yule

Does your Christmas spirit tend toward fiber optics or candlelight? Get ready for a lot of both.

It all started with poinsettia shock. Back in February, Renee Carpenter of Allied Florists of Texas, getting a 10-month leap on the holiday season, sent us an astonishing photo—here were Santa Claus with a pretty lady on his lap and a nice looking gent beside them. Dwarfing even the big polar elf was a huge Christmas-tree-shaped arrangement of poinsettias, all of them in gumball colors—lime green, aqua, tangerine, grapey blue. What a knockout!

Tree of dyed poinsettias
Poinsettia Celebration 2006
Ellison Greenhouses
Photo: Courtesy of Renee Carpenter

The picture came from last year’s Poinsettia Celebration at Ellison Greenhouses in Brenham, Texas. The Ellisons, who do a radiant business in poinsettias, hold a huge open house the weekend before Thanksgiving so that folks can buy a plant to do double duty (triple and quadruple, for observers of the Solstice and Hanukah) through end-of-the-year holidays. The 2007 event, held Nov. 17-18, was the Ellisons’ 17th celebration—though it’s hard to imagine how they topped this 2006 spectacle.

Apparently, the craze for candy-colored poinsettias began in Europe about six years before the U.S. retailers caught on, around 2004. One reason for the burst in popularity has been the introduction of improved dyes that don’t shorten the lives of the plants.  “White or cream colored poinsettias can be turned blue, orange, purple, or almost any other color desired,” write the ag extension folks at University of Minnesota; though they caution, “Avoid wetting dyed tissue because the color may run.”

Running, for certain, will be traditionalists, for whom poinsettias with bracts merely mottled pink were enough of an abomination. Bring out the smelling salts, because those purists likely have swooned at the sight of the Ellisons’ tree. When they begin to come around, you can show them this:

Poinsettias in the wild, growing in Coorg, India
Photo: Lubna Kably

Here are poinsettias growing out of doors (It’s true— they don’t all come in pots covered with shiny paper!), a lovely Christmas gift from our friend Lubna Kably of Delhi. She took this picture at Coorg, “a hill station near Bangalore.” Lubna tells us, “Coorg has these huge coffee plantations. Poinsettias grow wild in the Coorg region, in two colours red and also white.” We recall seeing poinsettias growing with coffee in Guatemala, too, shading the trees as the beans matured.

Withered stick fiber optic Christmas tree
(or whatever)
Photo: Artificial Christmas Tree

To our versatile readers, we offer both poinsettia displays, yang and yin of the season. And we wonder—which approach to celebration appeals to you? Are you planning to buy a fiber optic tree this year, like our friend Jorge Perez (yang)? Or do you prefer taking a horse drawn sleigh—and ax—into the Vermont woods to fell a native pine (yin)? Will you be roasting chestnuts (yin) or playing Neopets (yang)? Is your holiday music Mariah Carey or Adeste Fideles ? Will there be candlelight or lava lamps? Are you now busy knitting scarves or buying iPods? Stringing popcorn or flying to Vegas?

The old philosophers advised a combination (thus the droplets of contrasting color in the two halves of the Yin/Yang symbol). But retailers are having a hard time managing both. Consider this—a “withered branch fiber optic Christmas tree” that appears to be standing in a toilet plunger, an especially weak attempt at balance.

Or so we thought...our partner just spotted it and wants one!

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Desperate Compromise in Kenya’s Rose City

The city council of Naivasha, the biggest flower growing region of Kenya, has scaled back its demands on farms, in the interest of two bathrooms.

A woman packs roses
at one of Naivasha, Kenya’s, scores of flower factories
Photo: Antonty Njuguna, for Reuters

Some say that Naivasha is the most unequal city in all Kenya. Once a favored haunt of rich white hunters, it’s now mainly a pass-through for tourists traveling from Nairobi to wild game safaris. In 1988, Naivasha’s planners estimated that the town would grow to only 50,000 residents. But there are more than 300,000 people living here now, and 50,000 of them are crowded into the Kargita slum.

Most of these new residents have been drawn to the region by the hope of work in Kenya’s booming cut-flower industry. Kenya supplies over 30% of Europe’s cut flower market and the Naivasha area accounts for 75% of production; one third of the local population works growing or processing flowers. But as the farms have prospered and numbers of in-migrant workers swelled, the municipal infrastructure of Naivasha itself has collapsed. The city is deeply in debt and basic facilities are strained, broken, or non-existent.

“These farms earn over Sh9.8 billion every year,” said Naivasha’s town clerk, Maurice Ochieng. Yet the municipality has thus far been able to assess the industry only for business permits and the land it owns —not sales. That means Naivasha the city takes in only about $32,835 annually (2.2 million Kenyan Shillings) from the flower industry. Furthermore, wages at the flower farms amount to only $37-$104 per month.

This past summer, municipal leaders made a push to tax the farms 1% on their annual output. But 57 growers, threatening to move their operations to neighboring Ethiopia, took the matter to court and won.

Naivasha via Google Maps

This week, reports George Omondi of Nairobi’s Business Daily, Naivasha’s city leaders met with the Lake Naivasha Growers Group and vowed to cooperate with the industry rather than battle on. “It is common knowledge that most of the concerns raised previously are true and obvious,” said the city’s Maurice Ochieng, “but we must be able to move past them for the good of our town.” According to Omondi “Some flower farms, such as Oserian Development Company, have already started lending out their vehicles to the municipal council to help in garbage collection.” It will take the joint efforts of the farms and the city to handle these day-to-day chores—and to deal with the ecological perils that rapid growth and the flower industry in particular have wrought on Lake Naivasha, home to hippoes, many species of fish, and over 400 species of birds. 

How dire are conditions in the city of Naivasha? George Omondi writes of yesterday’s meeting between town and business officials, “Most growers could not hide their shock as Mr. Ochieng proceeded to read his wish list for the town to them. It turned out from his priority list that the town of roses does not have a single fire fighting engine. The construction of two public toilets is also listed as an urgent project for the council. He wants the farms’ assistance in solving some of these problems.”