Telstar Iris Bloom Boom

Telstar Iris Bloom Boom

#Blue #blueflowers #iris Growing iris Iris with Stargazers Lane DeVries Telstar The Sun Valley Group

Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Iris.
Iris Who?
Iris Valentine’s Day was OVER!

Telstar Iris is one of Sun Valley’s core crops. We grow several other varieties and colors, such as Hong Kong, Hommes Blue, Casa Blanca and Skydiver, but talk to any flower professional, and one word keeps coming up. Telstar. The big, bright blue Telstar iris is the premier iris in floriculture. So why has the Telstar risen to such popularity?

The main reason for the Telstar’s success is that it always opens. …Yes, in this uncertain world, we stand behind our Iris with a guarantee that they will open. It wasn’t so long ago that some unscrupulous breeders flooded the market with substandard iris. This led florist and consumers to shy away from iris.

Luckily those days are past us, today, when you work with Sun Valley you get access to the largest, most reliable Telstar iris crop in the world. These blue beauties flourish in California's rich soil. Since we have farms both at the north end of the state and the south end of the state, we have virtually unlimited year round availability. Right now the iris crop is coming on strong at our Oxnard Farm.

Our Telstar Iris Field in Oxnard, CA.

The iris are situated among vast rows of strawberries in this agricultural hub, the thick fields of iris look like a sea of green, with little blue highlights. I was in these fields last week, and it truly is something to see. The day I was in Oxnard the wind was blowing hard, and the sun was shining cheerfully. It wasn’t “warm” but after walking with a very fast paced Lane DeVries you definitely start to warm up. The dryness in the air chapped my lips, but the view was so incredibly I barely noticed.
Our team of iris pickers were working close to the access road in waist high iris. They diligently make their way through rows as they evaluate the buds. Iris aren’t cut, they are pulled with a snapping motion that generally leaves the bulb in the ground. If the bulb hangs on, it is snipped in the field. The iris get bundled into various stem bunches, 10 is our standard size. They are then placed in white buckets full of water on carts at the end of the rows.

Iris, just picked.

Picking an iris at the proper time is truly an art form. An experienced iris picker can tell by both a visual inspection and also by feeling the development of the flower with his or her fingers. Visually, it is very hard to do this in the field, experienced pickers are able to see some very small nuances in the stem to make the call whether to pick or leave it to develop a little more. The logistics of picking a crop like iris are pretty wild. In ideal conditions, you actually pick iris twice a day, because just that few extra hours can really make a difference. A team will stay in a “block” for about a week, picking twice a day for 5 to 6 days, and this will generally cover the picking the early, normal and late developing plants.

As a novice, I thought I could hop in there and find the iris at perfect picking stage. Not quite…

One of the pickers showed me how they train the newbies. The key is to hold a stalk up to the sun. The sun lets you see what is happening inside the sheath of the flower. It’s almost like looking at an x-ray of the flower; there you can see the developing blue color inside the bud. However, when you are in the field you can’t actually hold each bud up to the sun. This is where skill and experience come in….these men and women have it, I don’t.

The work of picking iris is definitely hard, but the beautiful location of the fields, the great group of team members and the lovely Southern California weather, must be why you see a lot of smiles out in the field.

Deep in the Iris

While walking the fields with Lane, his attention to each block, to each row, to each individual plant is amazing. He is constantly stopping to feel the soil, check on bulb development and talk to the growers about how different plantings are performing. This attention to detail shows into the final product, day in and day out.



Lane DeVries inspecting our Telstar iris crop.

The iris has remained a hugely popular flower for one big reason. It represents the color blue more than any other flower.

Quick, can you think of another blue flower?

Sure with a little thought, you came up with a couple, some varieties of freesia, delphinium or hydrangea, but it was more of a challenge than you thought, right?

Iris are a favorite of the flower buying public and there is a huge market for them. If you aren’t currently offering iris, perhaps now is the time.

It's a Farm! (Part 1)

It's a Farm! (Part 1)

#Arcata #Flower farming #Flowers #hydrangeas #iris #Redwoods #stargazer #Sun Valley



Looking at a beautiful flower arrangement on a polished wood table in your hallway, it is easy to forget that these flowers didn’t come from a test tube or a pristine laboratory. They came from a real working farm.  This means dirt, mud, weird smells, heavy equipment and people hustling and bustling in every direction.

Forklifts, trucks and carts full of buckets are zipping around in a constant commotion. You do a double take as a mini-train of colorful Hydrangeas goes speeding by, their delicate heads overflowing out of white buckets and barely staying on board.

These flowers were just picked, and are now on the way to be packaged and sent on their way. The contrast of vibrant colorful flowers stacked on a drab muddy cart, epitomizes the surreal beauty of a cut flower and the hard work involved in getting it to the vase on your hallway table or to the design table in your studio.

Farm fresh Hydrangeas and Golden Beauty Iris just after picking.

The beeping of a forklift grabs your attention just in time as it pulls out of a seemingly endless row of hoop houses. The scale is amazing. Are you on a flower farm tucked between the roaring Pacific Ocean and the legendary redwood forests of northern California, or in the vast Midwest, surrounded by silos, combines and hay bales?

The strong wind driving the salty freshness of the sea up over the dunes and across the Arcata Bottoms leaves no doubt that you are next to the ocean.  The sand and dust in the wind scour your cheeks, you are dodging huge puddles, keeping dry from the spitting rain and all the while looking out of the corner of your eye for the next forklift. Yes, they call this "summer" around here.

You reach for a heavy glass door, slide it open with both hands and step into a huge glass paned greenhouse; your senses react to the incredible change. Here you stand in the warm swirling air, the smell of new growth and rich soil welcomes you. The wind is gone, replaced by the hum of fans moving the air strategically around the vast green house. You still hear the outdoor environment as it shakes the glass panels of the structure with each gust, but now you feel the humidity and the effects of all that fresh green foliage. Row upon row of Oriental lilies greet your eyes, a few have blossomed out early, ridiculous blooms bursting out of a sea of green stalks.

Early blooms and Sumatra Lilies just about to be harvested.

The quiet of the greenhouse is very calming.  Way down at the end of a row, you see a small cluster of workers. They are snipping lilies at the perfect stage.  These lilies will be ready to open up and share the peak of their beauty when they get to the consumer.


Picking our Starfighter Oriental Lilies, the Starfighter is a contemporary version of the legendary Stargazer.

Sun Valley's growers guide the lilies upward with light.  Ironically, we are usually trying to reduce the amount of light on the lilies, so that they strive to grow taller and get closer to the sun.  The proper light level also encourages thick stems which are needed to support the big heavy blooms, usually growing 4 or more per stem.  Hanging from the top of the greenhouse are small black boxes.  These are sensors which are constantly monitoring the conditions in the greenhouse.  If the light gets too bright, canvas sheets are automatically pulled across the length of the green house, if it gets too dark, lights will come on to keep the precious lilies in the ideal conditions.

Bunches of lilies.

A flower farm is science wrapped in organized chaos. Communication flows from the growers, to the sales team, to the customers, back to the picking teams, to the warehouse and transportation departments, and again back to the customers.  Sun Valley prides itself on "operational excellence."  This isn't just lip service, this is an absolute necessity to get our California grown flowers to the end users all over the county, with the highest quality, impeccable consistency and a fair price.

"Creating a World of Color" includes a lot of people, enormous logistics and tons of soil.  In the next installment of "It's a Farm" we will visit the warehouse, so stay tuned.

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-Lily


“The earth laughs in flowers.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson