Women's Day Freesia Tsunami

Women's Day Freesia Tsunami

#american grown #CAGrown #WomensDay Freesia

Today is March 8th, so you know what that means....

 

To celebrate here on the farm, we'll be giving a mix of Sun Valley's finest flowers to all our female team members.  These valuable women help make the world of color a reality day after day.

 

One of the fine flowers included in these Women's Day bouquets is the beautiful and fragrant freesia.  A note about growing freesia--the soil is kept warm for healthy stem development, then for the moment(s) of truth, the soil is cooled so that the freesia can "set bud" (aka, begin producing its beloved flowers). 

That moment is now.  While the rest of the country is experiencing winter storms, our own Oxnard farm is experiencing a freesia tsunami, and it is beautiful!

Freesia are particularly fitting for Women's Day--a classically styled flower that performs well under pressure, with a lovely scent, and long vase life.

We'll be following the day's activities closely, sharing the good stuff and posting our own, so stay tuned @LilySunvalley on social media to see how women are being celebrated all over the world, all day long.  Follow more Women's Day happenings (and share your own) with the social media hashtags below:

 Happy Women's Day. 

Freesia Fanatics Unite!

Freesia Fanatics Unite!

Calvin Klein Eternity Chanel Allure Eau de Toilette DKNY Pure Freesia freesia arrangements Jennifer Lopez Still perfume Ralph Lauren Romance

Are you a freesia fanatic? Is there any flower as whimsical, playful and beautiful as freesia?  Start with their sequential blooms; they keep opening over time, so each stem has an enormous kinetic energy. Then add their scent, did you know many of the most popular fragrances in the world owe a debt to the mighty freesia?

Calvin Klein Eternity, Chanel Allure Eau de Toilette, Ralph Lauren Romance, DKNY Pure and even Jennifer Lopez Still all have a dominant freesia note. If you want to dig deeper into the roll of freesia in the perfume industry, check out this awesome blog called Perfume Shrine. *Caution* if you are interested in flowers and perfume, this site may consume the rest of your day.

I pulled several varieties of freesia from the coolers here on the farm, so I could get up close and personal with the different colors. While working hands on with these beauties, I also found that the different colors also smell differently. Some are peppery and sharp, others citrusy and tart.

Previously on Flower Talk, I covered how we grow Freesia on our farms... hint: you don't just toss the corms into ground.

A Freesia hoop house, ready for harvest.

Freesia has so much personality, yet, I don't think they are as well know in the flower industry as they should be...help do you part to change this.

Check out this video off one blooming, this will be the coolest 41 seconds of your day.

Another nice aspect of freesia is the stem length. you can get really long stems from Sun Valley which gives designers a lot of options for tall dramatic arrangements, and of course we also offer shorter stems, for wedding and bouquet work. The elegance of the tall stems are really something to experience.

Color-wise, white freesia is the most popular variety across the industry, but the saturated, warm tones of the other colors are gaining popularity, since their are more and more color options becoming available.

Freesia are also versatile. I like to combine it with our Telstar Iris, for a simple yet elegant presentation. The tall arching stems of freesia, balance the arrow-like straightness of our iris. Using a white or yellow freesia creates a bold contrast to the classic Telstar blue.

Freesia are available year-round at Sun Valley, and like all flowers, we have production times where a lot is coming to harvest at once. Right now, Freesia is enjoying it's time in the spotlight, grab a few boxes for the scent and few boxes for the color and have some fun.

Do You Doodle Flowers? Meet The Sun Valley Horizon

Do You Doodle Flowers? Meet The Sun Valley Horizon

#americangrown #CaFlowers #OriginMatters Flower Doodles Freesia Iris Sunflowers The Sun Valley Horizon Tulips

This week at Sun Valley we are excited to be rolling out a new item to keep you in the loop on what's happening on the Farm.

If you are on the Sun Valley email list, then yesterday you received the maiden voyage of the Sun Valley Horizon. This is our brand new eNewsletter, which will be arriving in your inbox periodically. The goal of the Horizon is to show you what we have on the Horizon.We are always looking ahead to the next harvest, planting or weather pattern. This is the nature of being a California Flower Farmer. We feel it is important to give you, the flower enthusiast, a heads up on what is happening next month or next season. The more we can share what the view ahead looks like, the more likely we can work together.  

Wait, what? You didn't receive out fancy new eNewsletter?  Oh, No! 

There is a quick easy way to remedy this situation. Subscribe right here. It only take a couple minutes, and don't worry we won't barrage you with emails, the Horizon takes a while to produce, so expect it (hopefully) about once a month. As you receive the Horizon, make sure to forward it onto your colleagues, customers,  friends and all those other flower lovers in your life and encourage them to subscribe.  You know who they are. Here is a link to the current Horizon  ...and next month we will be having a fun contest, where you will have the chance to win a few nice prizes.

Flowers are such a fun, magical item. They aren't a necessity to live (for most people), they aren't expensive, they aren't loud, they aren't fattening and they aren't pretentious. Cut flowers hold a certain purity. This is tied to their temporal nature. They will share all they have with you for a week or two, and then pass into the compost pile.  They are grown with the specific purpose of whimsy, beauty and flirtation from the very beginning. The personalities in our greenhouses, hoop houses and fields are as diverse as you would find in a group of people. The way a particular iris bends out of its row and under a water pipe to reach the light, the way a certain tulip will turn brilliant red among a block of white tulips and of course the amazing freesia, whose graceful stance in the hoop house looks like a sweeping ballet as the gentle breeze touches each blossom in a different way.

An iris with "extra" personality.

A non-conformist tulip.

Freesia waiting on the breeze.

Recently I was looking through a big stack of old note books and correspondence, deciding what to keep and what to recycle...in the name of spring cleaning.

What I kept noticing in my doodles, drawings and other scribbles, was a reoccurring theme of flowers. The rudimentary shape of a tulip, the symmetrical lines of a lily and the cheerful blossoms of a sunflower are all over these journals and notebooks. And mind you this is years before I entered the floral industry. 

 

Perhaps I have had flowers on the brain my whole life and working for Sun Valley is truly my destiny. However, I am willing to bet people in all cultures, in all socioeconomic classes and with all different world views doodle in flowers. 

 

Is there another item you can hold in your hand which crosses all natural and man-made boundaries with universal recognition and universal emotion? I think not. What do you doodle?

What Happens on the Farm in Spring?

What Happens on the Farm in Spring?

#americangrown #CaFlowers #OriginMatters Asiatic Lilies Easter flowers Freesia Gerberas Iris LA Hybrid Lilies ornithogalum dubium Oxnard

"The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings."

- Joyce Kilmer, Spring

Spring officially starts tomorrow! And not a moment too soon, am I the only one feeling like this was a longer than necessary winter? Longer days mean more time after work to play in the sun and warmer temperatures all around.  The earth’s northern hemisphere is now tilting toward the sun, so shake off that chill of winter, and hold on.

As flower farmers this means we have to make some pretty dramatic changes in response to the changing seasons. One great part of having two farms spaced about 600 miles apart is that we have the ability to grow our crops where the weather is ideal. This gives Sun Valley top of the season availability, no matter what season it is.

For the last several months we have been growing Iris at our Oxnard facility. Now as it gets warmer down south, we will start iris production in Arcata as well. This parallel production will give us a steady supply as spring and summer bring warmer weather to both our farms, by mid-June it will get too hot for iris down south, but for spring we will be producing heavily both north and south.

In our hoop houses, we will also be bringing the majority of our Asiatic Lily and LA Hybrid Lily production north after about Mother’s Day. Now though, we will be running substantial production on both farms, as the climate is great in both locations. Crops that like the warmth such as Delphinium, Dubium and Matsumoto Asters will be coming on strong as these longer days lead to more light and more warmth in Oxnard.


Ornithogalum Dubium Orange...perhaps the hardest flower name to pronounce. 

Our freesia crop, which is one of the most temperature sensitive crops we grow, will be coming back to Arcata after Mother’s Day as well. If you aren’t familiar with freesia it is really worth getting a few bunches to watch them develop. It has an unusual, yet subtle scent which varies by variety. The vase life is remarkable, as the florets open up over time and there are great color options. I wrote about freesia last fall, but it continues to impress me as a beautiful and versatile flower.

Freesia, very easy to pronounce!

Tulips always stay in Arcata, except for a smattering of hoop house French Tulips that we grow in Oxnard during winter. Our big gerbera program is always in Oxnard, this is due to the growing infrastructure they need, as well as the growing expertise in Oxnard. Our lead gerbera grower, Gerrit Vanderkooy, grew up in Holland in a family which specialized in gerbera growing, so his knowledge of this particular crop runs especially deep. This generational knowledge is another key to maintaining steady production of our core crops.



Gerbera's Grown at our Oxnard farm.

 In Arcata, I asked our head grower Tim Crockenburg, what happens differently as we joyfully roll into spring.

“Spring is volunteer iris time in Arcata, we have big fields of bulbs that come up naturally every year. Frosty nights are few and far between, and the warmer days lead to healthier crops.”

What about in the greenhouses?

“We are using the grow lights less on the Orientals as the days get longer, currently they are still growing pretty slow. The most important factor in lily growing is the temperature. As it warms up they will come to harvest quicker.”

How are we looking for Easter and Mother’s Day?

“This year we are right on schedule. We always anticipate easing into spring, so we have planted our blocks with enough cushion to ensure that we will be in great shape for Easter…and then for Mother’s Day we will really kick it into high gear.”

Springtime in California is truly something to behold. No place on earth holds forth with so much potential. Whether in the high peaks of the Sierra, the rugged coastline at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, or in a backyard in San Francisco, spring is more than just a symbol of hope; it is as close to a true rebirth we will ever know. As the buds on the alders in Humboldt County explode from dormant branches and the mountains of the Los Padres National Forest above our Oxnard farm turn vibrant green, we can all breathe a sigh of relief that we are once again taking leave of the wet cold, winter and embracing the anticipation and optimism of spring.

Freesia: Grace Under Pressure

Freesia: Grace Under Pressure

Flower Talk Freesia freesia arrangements freesia bouquets. freesia images Red Beauty freesia white freesia

Our Freesia crop is coming in really strong here on the Farm in Arcata. Freesia is a flower I wasn’t too familiar with until recently. Now I am enchanted by this delicate, elegant and fragrant flower….it may be my new favorite flower…sorry Leen van der Mark Tulips. Right now I have our Red Beauty variety on my desk, it captures the essence of autumn with its warm, reddish, orangeish, dark yellowish color palette. This great color is augmented by a citrus scent that is truly out of this world. On closer inspection, the freesia is full of contradictions.


A bold arrangement of Sun Valley Freesia.

Named after the German physician Dr. Friedrich Heinrich Theodor Freese, this flower is a native of Africa. Apparently, the flower was first brought to Europe in the 1700s, however, do to some errors was never properly classified. In 1870’s the flower was rediscovered growing in the Botanic Gardens of Padua, Italy. After this “rediscovery”, somehow connected to Dr. Freese, the Freesia became widely cultivated after 1874.

Sun Valley grows several different colored varieties freesia and we have the crop year-round, however, right now is the primo time for freesia. White is the most sought after color, luckily, we have quite a few white varieties being harvested.  The process of growing a Freesia isn’t a simple one; in fact it is one of the most challenging crops on the Farm to grow. This is because the temperature of the soil is the key factor in having a robust crop.


The most popular freesia color?  White.  Perfect for weddings and the coming holidays.

Here is how it works: Corms are planted directly in the soil, protected by a “Hoop House.” The crop takes a long time, usually between 20 to 24 weeks. During this time we need to keep the soil pretty warm, specifically above 53.6 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature the plants will grow big, tall and healthy, however, they will never bloom. Hmmm, this could be a problem.

To change the Freesia from a vegetative plant to a budding plant we need to chill the soil, and it will “set bud”, a.k.a. produce flowers. Back in the old days, farmers would literally bury water pipes underground among the rows. They would run warm water through the pipes during the vegetative cycle, then start pumping cold water through the pipes when it was time for budding and the subsequent harvest.
 

How do you think these smell?

At Sun Valley we have experimented with a lot of systems to produce outstanding freesia, however, we finally took a nudge from Mother Nature. Here in Arcata we have perhaps the perfect climate to grow freesia, our summer lows hover in the low 50’s and our highs might hit 75. As we roll into fall, the lows dip into the mid-40’s and the highs are in the 50’s and the freesia naturally start budding, RIGHT ABOUT NOW. This is a banner year for our freesia, as the temperature has been perfect, the stems are long and the blooms are robust. We grow freesia year round on the farm, so in the winter and spring we actually lay tarps the over the beds of corms to hold the warmth in.

Earlier in this post, I mentioned that the Red Beauty variety has citrusy scent. Another interesting thing about freesia is the fact that the different colored blossoms can have dramatically different fragrances. The white variety seems to have peppery overtones, while the purple is a bit more earthy. By all accounts the white is considered to be the most fragrant.

According to About Flowers, the bright flowers blossom along one side of the plants stem, a pattern known as “zygomorphic.” While the buds are produced facing downward, the stem bends as the flowers mature so that the blossoms end up facing upward. Each long stem produces up to 10 flowers with little foliage.


Get Creative with Sun Valley Freesia!

Freesia are said to symbolize friendship, innocence, thoughtfulness, perseverance and being high-spirited. It is also the flower given for the seventh wedding anniversary. Contemporary florist, noting its graceful appearance, recommend freesia for someone who has performed gracefully under pressure.
I think “Grace Under Pressure” fits the personality of the elegant freesia perfectly. Grown for a long time, under very particular conditions, freesia come out as a beautiful, classically styled flower with a lovely scent and long vase life.

lily@tsvg.com

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On the Wet-Pack Line

On the Wet-Pack Line

flower packaging Freesia geotropism gravitropism Iris Lilies phototropism Tulips

Your mother always told you to stand up straight, keep your shoulders back, chin up and don’t slouch! She would be thrilled to see how we keep this same attitude with our flowers. It amazes me that we ship many of our flowers standing upright, and sometimes standing up in water.  I decided to head down to the warehouse to learn what the process is.

The first word that got dropped on me was geotropism…geo-whaaaat? Geotropism, also known as gravitropism, is the response of a plant part to the stimulus of gravity. Plant stems will grow upwards irrespective of the position in which they are placed, this phenomenon is actually "negative geotropism" as the tulip will grow against gravity.  Roots show positive geotropism as they grow down, with gravity.  So when we lay tulips down to ship them, they might lose the perfectly straight posture our growers have worked so hard to achieve. There is also phototropism, which is a response based on the direction of the light source. We want to protect the integrity of that long elegant stem as long as we can, so the tulip doesn't bend in the vase when it is placed as the center piece of your room.


Kept in a dark room, over the course of 14 hours this tulip illustrates "negative geotropism."

Tulips and Snapdragons are the most geotropic flowers we grow. And our soil grown tulips, which are prized for their stem thickness and length, can really bend dramatically while packed in a flat box. Irises have some geotropic qualities, and lilies aren’t geotropic. The majority of Sun Valley’s customers have their tulips and iris packed upright.



On the day I chatted with the upright pack team, they were in the middle of doing a lily wet pack. The "wet pack" keeps your flowers as fresh as possible, since they ship while sitting in life-giving water.  Now this gets pretty wild, big carts of lilies are wheeled in from the coolers. The team sets up plastic bags, then places black buckets inside each bag, the buckets have about 2 or 3 inches of water in each. The conveyor belt moves forward in short bursts while team members fill the buckets with bunches of California Grown lilies. 


The lily wet pack line in action.

This is some hard work as the lilies are pretty unwieldy, so the crew really has to struggle to get the lilies in the buckets and bagged up, then the conveyor belt slides them down to the boxing area. Here the boxes get formed, and the lilies are inserted for a perfect snug fit. Next packaging tape is wrapped around the box, and it shoots through into the shipping area. The boxes are set upright on pallets, and away they go, with plenty of water for their journey. Speaking with team leader Douglas Miller, he says, “Customers are finding the upright pack is better than a flat pack, we are seeing more and more orders going upright than ever before.”  We have also started packing our freesia in wet packs since it keeps the flower vitality and increases vase life.

Team Member Michael, dropping wet packed lilies into a box.

Iris like to be shipped upright as well. They go into a special box which is resistant to moisture, but they don’t ship with standing water. Producing boxes at Sun Valley is actually a full time job for 2 or 3 people. Seeing these specialized boxes on the packing line, I decided to head upstairs in the warehouse, where Danial, John and Nick are making boxes on a huge level. Daniel was making hamper dividers for iris on this really cool foot operated stapling machine. He can turn out about 500-600 boxes per hour on this machine. Watching him work you see a deep level of concentration, as he assembles the various components of our shipping materials.



Danial making "hamper dividers" for shipping iris.

The same team that runs the tulip and lily wet pack line, will shift over to the iris line depending on the work flow.  This crew is usually blasting classic rock and wearing t-shirts in the chilly refrigerated air.  It is astonishing how many boxes they can ship in a short period of time.  This time of year the line will run for about 4 to 5 hours.  However, around Valentines Day they will be shipping 8,000 boxes of tulips every 24 hours! 

Buckets of Iris on carts, then getting packaged.

The upright packing line is a great combination of team work, technology and innovation.  This helps Sun Valley stay true to our mission, which is to create the best floral experience through operational excellence.

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lily@tsvg.com

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Licorice and Tulips

Licorice and Tulips

#cucumbers #Redwoods Artichokes California Flowers Dutch Eureka CA Freesia Lane DeVries licorice Mother's Day Tulips Valentines Day

I was out for a walk through the Sun Valley greenhouses today, and the normal buzz of activity was noticeably missing. No blasting music from the Spanish station, no trains of carts streaming by dangerously close and most unusual, many of the greenhouses aren’t brimming with flowers.

Boots left after an Oriental Lily pick

This isn’t to say that there aren’t busy places on the farm right now. Teams are picking lilies, tulips, iris, brassica, gladiolas, hydrangeas and freesia, but today you just get a mellow summer vibe on the Farm. Many people may not realize that summer is the official slow time in the flower growing business. It is slow for obvious reasons. People can pick flowers in their own yard, people are spending more time outside in nature and also, people are taking vacations and traveling more so they break their normal routines.

This is a blessing for some of our employees, as they get a break from the long hours they put in from November through Mother’s Day. It is a time to recuperate and strategize for the next big season, which gets going in late August, as kids go back to school and people resume their shopping habits.

While the fields lay fallow, they are actually very photogenic as remaining crops bloom out and cover crops return nutrients to the soil.


A freesia hoop house, past its' prime.  We currently have a fresh freesia crop, ready to go.

This time does provide an interesting opportunity for flower growers. What do you do to keep your greenhouses full and your work force intact? At Sun Valley we do a few different things. We spend a lot of time and effort keeping our facilities up to date, doing maintenance and cleaning.


The inglorious but necessary task of power washing our numerous carts.

The other project we are exploring is growing some traditional vegetables, especially those with a quick life cycle, so our green houses and fields will be ready to plant floral crops for the holidays.

A cuke crop in the making.

This year we are bringing in a cucumber crop, featuring several popular varieties of cukes. These will be harvested and sold to regional vegetable wholesalers. I’ve been trying to convince Sun Valley CEO, Lane DeVries that we should get in the pickle business, but apparently the Dutch aren’t as enthusiastic about pickles as I am. I envision our greenhouses brimming with delicious crunchy pickling cucumbers, then being soaked in a brine of fresh dill, garlic and pepper. Mmmm, maybe next year.

You may ask, what are the Dutch enthusiastic about?  LICORICE and TULIPS.

LICORICE. More than enthusiastic…licorice fanatics! They have the highest per capita consumption of licorice of any country in the world, almost 4 ½ pounds per person, per year. This according to about.com, read the full story of the Dutch licorice addiction here. Check it out, banana flavored licorice. (weird!)

TULIPS. Growing tulips is more than just an agricultural pursuit for the Dutch, it is a cultural passion. The reason Sun Valley Floral Farm is based in Arcata, California, is because our climate is as close to Holland as anywhere else in the U.S.  Sun Valley is rooted in innovation, and we have sought to improve upon the Dutch tradition. Our Tulips average 14-20 inches and weigh 45 grams each, where a tulip grown in Holland averages a height of 11-15 inches with a weight of 18-22 grams. See a comparison.

Lane moved to the States thirty years ago, and in a classic American success story; the student now out shines the teacher as Lane and the Sun Valley growers produce the world’s best tulips. 365 days a year.


Sun Valley CEO Lane DeVries, with our "World's Favorite" tulip.

Another surprising crop we are growing are artichokes. They are a great match for us, because we harvest some for people to eat, and then we also harvest a portion as a great bouquet accent item. The unique texture of a small artichoke head and the edgy leaves make artichokes not only a yummy foodie delight, but a non-traditional green for bouquets, arrangements and other floral designs.

Well, I started out this post mentioning that the farm was slow. As I look out my window today in the late afternoon, I see many employees wrapping up their days and heading home, many carrying artichokes. I guess we aren’t really slow, it is just a different rhythm from the sheer madness of spring or the panic before Valentine’s Day. The goal is to enjoy each season's rhythm and realize that the flowers ebb and flow, but like the sea, they never stop.

Please share this post with all your flower friends. Connect with us on the web: Facebook, Pintrest, Twitter and Google+, or visit of website www.tsvg.com

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