Where do Your Flowers Come From?

I often have customers come in and ask "Where do your flowers come from?" Some even ask where my personal greenhouse is. Well, the truth is that I do not grow the flowers myself! They come from many places, all around the world. Most commonly, my flowers come from Colombia and Ecuador. This usually includes my roses, carnations, babies breath, and chrysanthemums. I have seen roses, peonies, orchids and chrysanthemums grown in BC, Canada before as well!

I have seen flowers come to me from as far as Africa, which is where they grow some varieties of protea! A few of the orchid varieties I carry are from as far away as New Zealand. I do have a few varieties of flowers that are from the United States of America. I have seen greenery (fern mostly!), sunflowers, and some tropical flowers such as birds of paradise.

Now, I wanted to clarify that I am not an importer of these flowers. I buy my flowers from local wholesale companies who do have an import license and can bring these in to the country for me. Many flowers travel on a plane for hours, and then on a truck for hours. Some are transported in water, while others are transported dry! When the flowers arrive at the wholesalers, some are cut and placed into water, while others are just put on the shelves in their boxes. When they get to me, almost all of them go into water, except for a few types of greenery that can sit on a shelf in the cooler.

I like to hydrate my stems for an hour before I put them out in the main cooler for sale. To properly hydrate we usually cut a few cm off the bottom of the stems to reopen the stem and allow for water to hydrate them properly - they need it after these long trips internationally!