As it was getting close to Valentine’s Day, writing about roses seemed appropriate and in the process I gathered a few articles about roses that I was not previously aware of.
First, the main place commercial roses are grown in now South America–either Columbia or Equador.
They have an advantage in providing a savannah condition of open skies with 12 hours per day of sunlight at a high altitude of 8400 ft above sea level. They can grow roses more quickly and at less expense, in part due to cheap labor–there are 130,000 Columbians in the floriculture biz– AND get them to customers in the US faster than CA growers can ship to the East coast.
Thirty million roses are shipped daily on cargo jets from Columbia to Miami, then to refrigerated trucks and driven on to Florida warehouses that repackage, make bouquets and ship all over the United States.
How and when did this begin to happen?
The rose growing capital of the U.S. used to be Madison, New Jersey, but when the oil embargo put the pinch on heating oil for greenhouse heat, profits started to fall and affected other rose growing areas as well. With property values rising too, many growers sold their land and left the business.
Under George Bush Sr., a decision was made to do something about all the cocaine flowing out of Columbia, which at that time was a morass of gangs, crime and murder. So, seeking incentives that would lure Columbians away from growing coca for something legitimate that American markets would accept, the result was “rose growing”.
There are stories of how the Columbian workers had a learning curve on how to grow and cut roses and how they used garden weeds as bouquet fillers. And it wasn’t unusual to discover cocaine stuffed in among boxed roses.
Our US greenhouses couldn’t compete with the imports and attempted to push for higher import duties. But Congress passes the trade agreement between US and Columbia which led to a roll back on import fees on the Columbian flowers while our typical exports like corn and wheat could go tariff free to Columbia. With no assistance to the industry, rose growing was mostly abandoned in the US– ti dropped 95% over the past 30 years so that there are only about 15 roses growers left in the US. They mostly concentrate on high end roses for events like weddings.
The most common rose from Columbia is a tall very red hybrid tea rose named “Freedom” which is scentless. With the low prices (insider laborers in Columbia make $300 per month), mass retailers like Walmart have overtaken the position that florists used to have as the main source for roses. They offer them for sale at discount prices that domestic growers can’t match given the costs to raise roses in the U.S. And Americans want to buy cheaply and in bulk amounts.
So consumers can find scentless red roses in bulk for Valentines Day at cheap prices. You’ll have to look for the true, dreamy-scented quality roses growing in backyards and botanical gardens.
Here’s an example of inexpensive roses from a seller (Freedom roses)
