Alexandra Farms Design Contest Winner

Today, I want to share my recent trip to Bogota, Columbia where I toured Alexandra Farms garden roses. I actually won this trip from a yearly design contest that they host. (You can read up on my experience on a blog post they recently posted ). The trip was both educational and fun, and I felt really lucky to be flown down, hosted, and taken through the farms.

Naturally. I took my husband Justin with me on the trip. He deserves so much more than a trip to Columbia for how much he does for my business. The amount of talking that I do with him as I run ideas by him all the time. The amount of hours he's put in helping me with the new studio build. He's just the best. The willingness that he has in believing in me, believing in flowers, and being there to help me throughout my journey, I owe him a lot more than a trip to Columbia. I’m just super grateful I got to take him and share this trip with him.

So, as I was mentioned, Alexandra Farms is a garden rose farm that is connected to David Austin garden Roses. David Austin is a bigger name with a bigger production that Alexandra farms. They offer cut roses but also garden rose bushes for the landscaper and gardener. You may have seen David Austin roses being sole at your local nursery. They are phenomenal.

David Austin and Alexandra Farms have both worked to elevate the longevity, shapes, colors, and sturdiness of garden roses. Back in the day, even just 50 years ago, florists working with garden roses would have to wire every stem. They were weak, the heads were small, and the blooms didn’t last. Nowadays, garden roses are so sturdy and have higher pedal count counts than ever been before. Plus they smell even more beautiful than ever before.

There's there's a whole category of growing cut flowers commercially that goes through a lot of testing and and scientific work. These people are breeding all these different flowers together and combinations to train create new colors and new varieties, a cup to shaped head versus a more open rounded head, a higher petal count, more fragrant flower, etc. It's mad scientists out there who love flowers who are training to come up with the the greatest and best and the most unique varieties possible and we got to see it first hand at both Alexandra Farms in Bogota.

The first day we got to visit the testing site where Alexandra Farms is growing all new varieties and playing around with how they grow and breed their roses. We got to wander the greenhouses and see them all. We actually even given a pair of shares to go cut our 2 favorite roses from all the new varieties that testing. We got to see how they did and performed. We tested them inside and outside of water. We passed them around the group, and we had this big conversation about them. What would this rose’s market availability be like? Do you think people would be into it? Do you think it's too similar to something that's already on the market? Will it last long in a vase of water? Could it last out of water?

So it was a really cool conversation to have sitting there with you know, the Alexander farm staff as well, Joey leading the way. He is so knowledgeable about Garden and Roses. He was our host and guide while we were there along with Maria, Theresa, and Monica. I felt so taken care of and loved and you know, we arrived with little, like, swag bags and got to walk around to the farm itself, and, see all the roses growing and meet some of the staff and employees and see their packaging facility as well and huge coolers full of thousands of roses ready to get shipped out.

The reason farmers do so well in Colombia is they have a very consistent in temperature all year long. They actually don't participate in the seasons. So it's been said to me that every everyday sees all 4 seasons. One minute its warm and sunny and the next is windy and cold. But overall pretty consistent, the temperature, I think only changes about 30 degrees fahrenheit. It's not a huge jump.

But, yeah, It makes for really, really awesome flowers. Really strong, resilient flowers. And then their location in the world with exporting is key. Their economy thrives by getting all those flowers exported out of there. And it’s a very woman led industry. When the flower growing first started out, it went off with a bang because it was during the women’s rights movement. We witnessed lots of women tending to their roses and packaging them up in the warehouse. A lot of women have their very own sections in the gardens and take pride in their growing.

I have huge love for everyone at Alexandra farms. It was spectacular getting to know them and see everything from their perspective. Thank you to everyone who made the trip so enjoyable and memorable!