Lucie Monk Carter
Mankind’s attachment to flowers can be traced back over 10,000 years—the oldest discovered cemeteries show faint floral fossils within the graves—and the resultant body of art and literature speaks to the human fascination for these fantastic displays of color, patterns, and scent. Quite simply, they make people happy. They’re also one of nature’s truest wonders; their aesthetically pleasing petal distribution is often arranged in the Fibonacci sequence to maximize exposure to sunlight. A number in the Fibonacci sequence is found by adding up the two preceding numbers. Starting with 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, the sequence continues: 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, and so on forever. This pattern appears with such enterprise and frequency that it is known as the “Golden Ratio.” A lily has three petals, ranunculus has five; a daisy sprouts 34 or 55. And then there is the sunflower, a heliotropic blossom to out-Fibonacci most anything else. A sunflower isn’t just one flower but a composite of thousands of tiny spiraling flowers demonstrating the mathematical rule that patterns the universe.
For centuries, the United States cut flower industry was densely populated with domestically grown products. And then one day, it wasn’t.
Flower farming, once localized, first moved to California and Oregon with the advent of refrigeration. Though a regular bouquet didn’t come from your neighborhood farm anymore, most consumers could correctly assume that they weren’t too far down the production line. Western farms embraced the opportunity for growth, offering a wide selection of blooms indigenous to farther corners of the world. However, as commodity trade globalized, the U.S. flower trade was all but erased.
Where have all the flowers gone? Colombia, mostly.
In 1975, Donna Yowell opened The Flower Market, a “bucket shop” in Jackson, Mississippi, that—true to its name—sold flowers in buckets by the stem or in bouquets. “90% of what I sold in my shop I imported from Bogotá,” said Yowell. “They were cheap, plus there was nowhere else to get it.”
At that time, it took two weeks for a shipment to arrive, sometimes distressingly damaged. “You can forget about fragrant,” she said. “My hands were broken out from the chemicals used on the product,” she added, noting that there was no telling what was on those flowers, but it surely wasn’t good. “What really bothered me was that 80% of what I took out of those boxes, we could grow here in Mississippi.”
Fifteen years later, she closed her storefront, continuing instead to farm flowers from home. “This is a great option for young growers and designers,” said Yowell.
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Imported flowers, of which Colombian roses are a great example, are bred for shipping. These roses are grown with a speed unknown in nature, high in the Andes where year-round sun and an unregulated workforce enables growers to mass-produce, package, and ship blooms at low costs and without tariff across the United States. The selective breeding process, has, over time, resulted in a durable, strong bloom that can withstand chilled production floors, gloved fingers, and storage boxes.
Many flowers are not so well adapted; the complex, friendly-faced sunflower is just one type that has never traveled well. Today, a market is growing for locally sourced high-dollar crops that are more outside of the box. Mary Marston, farmer/florist and operator of Plum Nelly Flower Farm in Coushatta, Louisiana, began farming her property after reading an article by Denyse Cummins, then-horticulturalist at LSU AgCenter, detailing the profitability of specialty cut flower farming in Louisiana.
Lucie Monk Carter
With Nice Stems, Mitchell Provensal sells zinnias, celosia, sunflowers, marigolds, gomphrena, basil, and amaranth among other flowers that like the heat.
Specialty cut flowers are crops other than the big three—mums, roses and carnations—and fall into one or more additional categories, according to Cummins. “Line flowers,” as their name suggests, are long and linear; “form flowers” offer round, flat shapes; and “filler” takes the form of airy, small flowers or greenery. In these niches, homegrown blooms far outperform international supply chain alternatives and are thus highly profitable.
Successful farmers must pay the same care and attention to soil chemistry, irrigation, light, and temperature as they would vegetable crops, but the flower-filled field still retains a bit more romance.
Quality sells. “I wish people understood that cut flower farming is just that—farming,” said Marston, a retired schoolteacher. “It is up early in the morning, cut your flowers, get your water, fertilize; check for weeds.”
And to the uninitiated, a flower farm might seem like a front garden, but bigger. Fields of bright blooms! But growing cut flowers as a commodity is a complex business, mixing science and art to unearth tidy rows of varying fragrance, color, and size. Successful farmers must pay the same care and attention to soil chemistry, irrigation, light, and temperature as they would vegetable crops, but the flower-filled field still retains a bit more romance.
Where other agriculture mechanized, cut flowers did not. Stems must be cut by hand, either early morning after the dew dries or in the evening, when cooler air is less likely to damage the exposed biology. The moment of harvest is equally as important, as selecting flowers at correct “ripeness” generates the characteristics of scent, longevity, and blooming potential that draw customers to the locally grown.
The key is to plant what is in season, and let your love affair with flowers develop accordingly. For Marston, that means sweet peas in the early spring, before the omnipresent heat, sunflowers in the summer, and then zinnias in the fall. “My favorite is whatever is blooming at the time,” she said. “So right now, I love the sunflowers.”
Through trial and error, Marston fine-tuned succession planting at Plum Nelly, which keeps her sunflowers blooming into the fall. “If we don’t get an early frost, we could go longer,” she said. “But no one wants them after Thanksgiving anyway.”
Mitchell Provensal has translated a master’s in urban forestry into Baton Rouge’s new flower farm, Nice Stems, located on Scenic Highway. With his business just launched in June, Provensal can be found at the Red Stick Farmers Market’s Tuesday and Thursday editions with zinnias, celosia, sunflowers, marigolds, gomphrena, basil, and amaranth. “I chose flowers that like the heat,” said Provensal.
Local growers have the ability to guarantee extremely fresh, high-quality flowers—a difficult promise for importers to keep. Organizations like the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ASCFG) help connect cut flower farmers with resources and events for members to learn from other growers. Farmers benefit from understanding the regional context of their field, but plenty of advice rings universal too.
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Terri Doyle and her husband came into the cut flower business after irreparable damage from Hurricane Katrina to their dairy farm. “During those ten years after Katrina, we grew and sold hay and produce, and did other assorted jobs,” said Doyle. “At this point, our farm is a full-time cut flower farm.”
In the summertime, Doyle’s Coastal Ridge Farm in Picayune, Mississippi, specializes in sunflowers. “We harvest our sunflowers before they are fully open, so that the consumer has the longest vase life possible,” said Terri. “We guarantee that our flowers will fully open up,” she adds. You can find their blooms, marked “Locally Grown on the Gulf Coast” at Rouse's Markets, at the Ocean Springs Fresh Market or come to the farm to buy direct. A parenthetical note on their website that says “no sunflowers in January” reminds consumers that they are working with nature.
Overwhelmingly, today’s flower growers have decided to leave the roses to the Andes, and have learned to focus on producing niche blooms that fare well in their areas. “I don’t do Christmas and I don’t do Valentine’s Day,” says Marston, who prefers to use that time to catch up on her sleep, trash novels, and Netflix.
“We need to get away from needing to have things all year round,” said Tanis Clifton, expressing a growing concern over the instant gratification culture of America. “I look forward to seasons.” Clifton and her husband Rick own and operate Happy Trails Flower Farm in Dennis, Mississippi, where rolling hills split their production of specialty cut flowers into smaller plots. “In-season flowers depend on your location,” said Clifton. “For Louisiana and Mississippi it even varies depending on if you are on the coast or in the northern part of the state. We have a page on our website dedicated to what flowers bloom each month.”
“I have always loved flowers,” said Clifton. “I think it is in my blood. I never thought I’d be a flower farmer—otherwise I’d have done it sooner!”
Overwhelmingly, today’s flower growers have decided to leave the roses to the Andes, and have learned to focus on producing niche blooms that fare well in their areas.
At Pistil & Stamen Flower Farm and Studio in New Orleans, Megan McHugh and Denise Richter try to “lean in to our climate and not force anything.” The damp summers of coastal Louisiana make for poor planting grounds at the urban plots on St. Claude and Oretha Castle Haley where they do their growing. The area lacks the irrigation potential offered inland so in the summer, they take it easy. “We grow in soil, not hoop houses [where large hoops act as underwire for a layer of heavy greenhouse plastic], so we have keep an eye on the weather a lot,” said McHugh. “The better drainage your beds have, the better off your flowers are, because they don’t like sitting in any kind of standing water at all.”
Courtesy Pistil & Stamen Flower Farm and Studio
At Pistil & Stamen Flower Farm and Studio. Denise Richter (left) and Megan McHugh (right) let New Orleans’ climate take the lead for successful and organic growth.
In order to grow organically and successfully, McHugh and Richter use growing guides and books. “We spend time working on the body of our soil and the health of our plants,” said McHugh. They keep records like all farmers do and source seeds from reputable companies. “We also buy plugs in bulk, which are babies, because some flowers take a long time to grow into a seedling,” explained McHugh.
Organic—at its heart—means rethinking crop protection strategies to address the cause, not the symptom. Pesticides that have come to contaminate drinking water also kill off natural predators of these same pests, as well as pollinators. Flowers enhance the underlying ecological processes that benefit crop production.
Courtesy Pistil & Stamen Flower Farm and Studio
Zinnias
Consumers are asking the right questions, and meanwhile, food farmers are discovering flowers as an untapped income.
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Today Donna Yowell’s son, Taylor, owns The Garden Farmacy, also in Mississippi. When he started his homestead, the words of his mother trickled in, and he includes farm fresh flower bouquets, when available, in their local vegetable share program and at farmers markets.
“Intercropping flowers amongst our vegetable crops has helped The Garden Farmacy to push the cutting edge in diversifying agriculture in the state of Mississippi,” said Taylor.
“Pollinators are on a huge decline,” added Yowell, who is particularly concerned with the plight of the Monarch butterfly. Now that her kids are grown, she can focus energy on environmental advocacy. Her old shop, The Flower Market, is in the process of resurrection.
Currently, Donna Yowell serves as executive director of the Mississippi Urban Forest Council, an organization dedicated to education and advocacy. Through programs like Bloom Town, the MSUFC works to show community leaders how to enhance their communities with trees, flowers and shrubs that bloom.
Flowers, it seems, never go out of style.
Plum Nelly Flower Farm
Coushatta, La.
Nice Stems
Baton Rouge, La.
Doyle’s Coastal Ridge Farm
Picayune, Ms.
Happy Trails Flower Farm
Dennis, Ms.
Pistil & Stamen
New Orleans, La.
