Where Do Flowers Come From?

So, where do flowers come from? I can guarantee that your florist is probably not growing the flowers they're designing with themselves. Even though there are some farmer designer type floral people out in the world, it's a very rare combo. I can only think of like two that I know personally that design and grow. I think it's really rad when people do that because there is so much love that goes into growing flowers. Flowers are not like mass-produced in some, you know, big warehouse production line. They're an organic product and farmers are putting so much time and energy and love into growing these flowers for us. If you can imagine getting a little tiny seed and nurturing that seed until full bloom, that's quite the process. You have a lot to think about. You are fighting so many factors too, like pests and bugs. wind, sun, soil, water. There's probably more that I am not listing because I don't grow flowers, but it's a labor of love. You flower farmers out there, I fucking love you so much because with your patience and expertise, I get to have the most beautiful flowers to design with and I just super, super appreciate it so much. I love you guys, seriously.

Okay, so back to the topic of where do flowers come from? Everywhere is the broad answer. They are grown worldwide. Well, except for like in the Antarctic, but anywhere that, you know, flowers can grow, they are grown. Where are they grown the most? There's actually like six places in the world that grow the most flowers. They have the highest production. The first being California. We'll start with our neighbor here. California grows a bunch of flowers. They have a pretty mild climate year-round, so they're able to produce flowers year-round, which is super rad. We have a growing season here in Utah as well. It's like April to October, depending on when the last frost and the first frost happens every year. Uh, we have a fantastic local community here and I love my local flower farmers so much. If they’re here reading this, know that love you guys. I love working with local product. It's just like the healthiest, yummiest, most delicious product you can get your hands on. And it’s super fresh since the blooms were cut a day or two before they’re in your hands. It's such a treat.

So yeah, California is a top producer, along with Colombia, Ecuador, Holland, Kenya, and Ethiopia. So, I don't know if that blows your mind, but those are the top producers of floral production in the world. I actually got a chance to go to Colombia a couple years ago in 2019 and tour a bunch of flower farms and it was so magical. They grow so many beautiful varieties there. A lot of carnations come out of Colombia as well as roses and they just have like the flower growing process down to a T. Like the flowers that are coming out of that area are super healthy and super strong.

A reason to source not 100% locally grown flowers is availability. Here in Utah we can't really source local October through April. Due to frost and below freezing temps. But also, not everyone is growing the varieties that we florists need or have to design with. So that's why sourcing roses from Ecuador and Colombia makes sense. They just do a fantastic job and they have the climate for it. Yeah, super fantastic down there and Holland has like the most luscious blooms as well. I think of tulips when I think of Holland, I think of hydrangea, I think of like those beautiful spring blooms. They just have like the climate again and the resources to grow these beautiful flowers. So how would flowers from another country get to my hands as a florist in Utah? It's actually fairly easy. Yeah, with globalization and just the connectedness of the world, it's actually really, really easy to get your hands on delicious flowers that are grown worldwide.

So there's a few different options for sourcing flowers from other farms and this could apply to like local US farms too. Like if I was sourcing from California or some Midland farms or even Florida, I could work through my local wholesaler. I'm lucky enough with my studio in Sandy that I have three wholesalers within like a 10 minutes drive from the studio and I can place orders with my sales reps at each to get like the list of things that I want. They've made it really simple, streamlined and easy. So I just email like my sales rep what I'm looking for as long as I'm giving them enough notice, at least two weeks notice for my wishlist and then they have relationships with individual farms. And then they're ordering like bulk quantities for all of the forests that they work for. So they're kind of like the middleman, but it makes it really easy because I give them my wishlist and then they source it from like 50 different farms and they make it happen. So that's like a really spectacular resource for me to get those varieties that I'm after. And they make it super, super simple.

Another way I can source flowers from different countries or different farms in these countries is through brokers. So I actually work with a specific broker out of Ecuador to source roses from there. I could source the same roses from my local wholesaler but they ‘re a step between me and the farm so it doesn’t make sense for me to use them in this scenario. My rose guy down there is so sweet and I get a little bit better pricing because labor is cheaper in some other countries. There I said it, everybody knows it. But I can get cheaper product and it's really, really fresh and it's cut just for my order and then shipped directly to me. So there's not like as much hold time, if that makes sense.

And then another way to source flowers is directly from the farm itself. I actually do that here in Utah. There's a few flower farms that I just reach out directly to the owner of the farm and kind of pre-order with them. Like, hey, I have a wedding two weeks from now. Can I get x, y, and z? And I'll just pay directly to them. That is kind of like another way to source if you've got relationship with farms directly, use that. As a florist, it's definitely beneficial to have multiple relationships with multiple different farms, wholesalers, and brokers because you never know if you're going to be able to get the product that you want, there are just like those instances that, you know, there's hiccups that come along and that's just life, right? There could be like a shortage of something, like something so popular that we run out of a product and it's impossible to get because, you know, we can't just produce more on the like snap of a finger. These flowers take months to grow from seed to bloom and so there could be like an influx on demand and then you can't get what you want at this particular farm but oh wait your wholesaler found a small farm in a random place and you can get it you know so um other factors are like if a crop goes bad you know you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket just in case There could be like pests or mice or something that messes up the crop. There could be flooding. There could also be like travel issues. So if there's like hurricanes or something, then yeah, I can't get my product flown over, right? It's like, there's just all these different factors that can happen. So it's really, really smart as a florist to like source from as many different places that you can, just so that you can be sure to get the product that you're after. But one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things to do here in Utah, I know I kind of mentioned it earlier, is sourcing locally grown flowers. We have such amazing growers here. I love you. If you're listening to this, I love you, I love you, I love you. Thank you for putting your heart and soul into your flowers and providing them for people like me so that I can play with the most gorgeous blooms I've ever seen. Um, it's so great to like, not only support my local community by purchasing, but it's like the healthiest product ever. It's not being like cut and boxed and shipped. It's like literally being cut and then put in a bucket and then I go pick it up. And it is so nice. I am so lucky. I know I'm so, so lucky.

We actually have a collective here. Two flower farmers have joined. Steven with Mountain Man Flowers and Jesse with Hidden Creek Farms. They've actually started a collective where they kind of act as that middleman where they have relationships with all these different farms as well. They're both farmers. They have relationships with other farmers and then they host a market two days a week uh where we florists can go shop and pick up our pre-orders it's so fantastic like the fact that they have that coordinated is so brilliant and just you know before before the collective was set up like we florists had to drive from farm to farm to farm to farm and during wedding week like it's just too much it's like too much of our time Because we have to like start on production days and build and design and you know, we have so many other things on our to-do list that we like we're wasting all this time driving You know four or five hours on Tuesday to go pick up all of our stuff from local farms So now they've made it so easy for us to grab and I am just like eternally grateful. Thank you Thank you, Steven and Jesse for that It's like such a treat to have those beautiful blooms. So that is another way to source, like find out who your local farms are, find out who's growing, find out if you have a collective in your area. It's such a cool community and I've met so many other forests through it and just been able to build friendships in that as well, which has been super, super special.

So yeah, I think that kind of wraps things up, kind of gives a quick overview on where flowers are sourced and where they come from. I feel like a lot of people's experience to cut flowers is through your grocery store, because everyone goes to the grocery store, right? There's going to be flowers in any tier of grocery store, Walmart to Whole Foods. Those wrapped bouquets that you're seeing in cellophane and wrap at Walmart, they were actually probably put together in another country and then shipped here, cut, rehydrated, and then put on the shelf. Since labor is cheaper in other countries that some of the designs are actually sourced out in other countries, they're outsourced. So some farms will actually grow the flowers, design them, ship them designed, and then will rehydrate and put on the shelf. So just be aware. There's different quality and different, you know, healthiness of your flowers, the age of the flowers, just like in produce, right? You can get organic produce or garbage produce. Same with your flowers and your florist is going to be the best you can get your hands on. They just have these magical relationships with so many people in the industry to give you the healthiest, best, longest lasting flowers. I can say that you probably can't expect your wrap from Walmart to last that long. It's just not the ideal way to have your flowers taken care of and designed and brought to you, the consumer.