Ever wonder why flowers can be so expensive? I think it takes being a part of the industry
to have a true appreciation of all that a flower experiences prior to be
enjoyed by the end user.
Many of the flowers we see travel further to reach us than
we travel in our lives. This certainly
gives us perspective, doesn’t it? Most
of the roses we buy here in the U.S. are grown in South American countries and
orchids travel from Hawaii, Canada and as far as Thailand to grace our presence
for a few days or possibly weeks. Many flowers will travel the world, going
from their country of origin to the world’s largest floral auction in Aalsmeer
(Netherlands), to then be sold and transported again to its final destination.
Flowers these days are bred for performance, and they must
be cut, graded and packaged, not to mention transported, inspected and
transported some more before arriving to area suppliers. When you think about
how fragile they can be, it’s amazing that they reach us looking as lovely as
they do.
When I receive flowers for your event, they are boxed, out
of water. I must remove them from their protective
packaging, remove foliage and thorns, recut the stems and allow them to hydrate
before I can think about creating your floral extravaganza. So if your event entails hundreds and
hundreds of stems, think about all the time to prepare those individual stems,
not to mention all the design time it took to produce your masterpieces! I will not even mention the time it takes to
plan the design and redesign as a client modifies their
plans. Whew! I’m exhausted just writing
about it.
So next time you gaze at some gorgeous blossoms, if your
first instinct is to gasp at the price, think again about all it took for those
flowers to reach you. Then you may think they didn’t charge enough!
