Tulip Adventure in the Redwoods

Tulip Adventure in the Redwoods

#americangrown #CaFlowers #OriginMatters #tulips Arcata Hyperion Redwood Grove French Tulips Redwoods

Hyperion is the name of the tallest tree on earth; it is also the tallest living organism and is in the running for the absolute largest life on earth.  Just 40 miles or so from the Sun Valley Farm in Arcata, this tree has been living for about the last 750 years.  The sprawling redwood forests of Humboldt County are an amazing eco-system and are among the wonders on the United Nation World Heritage List.

 

So what was happening in 1260’s?  Kublai Khan was taking charge of the Mongol Empire, the Crusades were in full swing, Marco Polo was on his way to present day China, the Middle Ages consumed Europe in war and this tree was just a little sapling.

I was given the assignment of heading into the redwood forest with a big bucket of our Redwood Grove French Tulips. I wasn’t able to take them to Hyperion, since to prevent vandals and damaging the surrounding eco-system, only a handful of people know where the tree is exactly located.

I chose the Arcata Community Forest as a beautiful, yet close spot I could go on a back to nature photo shoot.  French Tulips have been a staple of spring for decades; the Single Late bulbs grow the tallest, largest, most dramatic tulips on the market.  You are probably familiar with the Menton, Sauturness and Grand Amore, these classics grow in the pastels of spring.

Recently though, the French Tulip market has been turned on its head.  Enter the “Pride Series” and the “Honor Series.”  These French tulips are bold, bright and stunningly big.  Red, orange, purple, pink and apricot colors are coming in from the fields right now.  Sun Valley has the United States exclusive to grow these tulips.  The breeder only grants permission to one grower per tulip producing nation to grow their tulips, and lucky for you, Sun Valley is it!

We only have a limited number of bulbs, so this is a limited crop. However, they are coming in strong right now.  (Hint, Hint!)  Next year we anticipate have a larger crop, so start wrapping your head around the fact that the French Tulip market is in the midst of a sea change toward big bright tulips to compliment the pastels you are familiar with.

We call our French Tulips “Redwood Grove” because they share many of the characteristics with the redwoods. Compared to normal trees, the redwoods are epic.  Hyperion is 379.1 feet tall, which is over 37 stories in a building.  While standard Sun Valley tulips reach about 14-20 inches, our French tulips start at 22 inches and reach much higher.  Right now we are picking some at 28+. And like all tulips, they continue to grow in the vase.

Pink Pride~ Now that's a TULIP!

  The redwoods and tulips actually thrive in the very same climate.  Damp and chilly with an even light level is just perfect.  Looking east from the farm to Liscom Hill and Fickle Hill the dense green of redwood foliage matches the rich green foliage of our Frenchies.

I was on Fickle Hill in the Arcata Community Forest on an ideal day for photography.  The light was cascading gently through the canopy almost like putting a spotlight on my bouquet.  I used a simple yet elegant vase and loaded it with as many colors as I could find in the cooler. Trudging into the forest with a white 5 gallon bucket stuffed with tulips, vase, tripod, and camera was no easy feat.   More than a couple joggers did a double take, staring at me as some sort of serious flower power hippie coming up the trail, this is not an uncommon thing in Arcata.

Once I reached the ridge with a nice view down into Jolly Giant Creek, I set to work finding the right light and setting up the tulips. The photos don’t show it, but it is actually very hard to find a flattish spot to set up a vase.  I can vouch that these tulips are tough; on more than a couple occasions I set up the vase among the redwood duff and ferns, then tip toed back to the camera on the tripod, only to look through the viewfinder and not see any tulips as the whole vase had slid off the mossy spot I had them balanced, whoopsie!   The shoot took about an hour until my bucket of tulips and I was exhausted.

I walked downhill to the trail head, again playing the role of flower power super hippie.  The mighty redwoods have an uncanny way of enveloping you in their essence; our French tulips have this same effect… make sure you get to experience them both.

Farm Weather Report

Farm Weather Report

greenhouses hoop houses Humboldt County Iris Lilies Oxnard Rain Redwoods Salmon Tulips



A flock of egrets looks for shelter from the rain on our Arcata farm.



“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” -Rumi


Our farm here in the north is ready to batten down the hatches, it looks like the classic Humboldt County rains have begun. Puddles are forming, and it appears they are here to stay.  Just east of here, our farm in Willow Creek has had a dusting of snow and a few showers in the last week.  To the south, our farm in Oxnard is still enjoying a dry, windy autumn.  Our farm in St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada has already been shoveling some serious snow, and at the farm in Baja, people are still wearing shorts…maybe they always wear shorts?

Here on the rugged north coast we are hardy people, many of which don’t even own a raincoat, while living in what is termed a “temperate rainforest.” The rain is essential to our ecosystem, which includes the tallest trees in the world and some of the most dramatic rivers in America.

Coho and Chinook Salmon are starting their amazing journey up the rivers to their ancient spawning grounds.  About 2 miles from the farm, salmon are schooling up and preparing for the water levels on the Mad River to rise so they can begin swimming upstream, in some cases over a 100 miles, to reproduce. We are blessed here in Humboldt County with a stunning natural environment, and an awesome community.  This environment, although not ideal for suntans, air conditioners or sunglasses is perfect for growing tulips, lilies and iris.

So what happens on the farm when the rain starts? Luckily, all our field crops have been harvested except our yummy artichokes, which don’t mind the rain.

Our hoop houses are the most exposed to the elements. They don’t have much structure, just plastic sheeting stretched over arched metal poles. I asked grower Tim, “What happens to all the water that runs off the top of these hoops? It seems that you would need huge trenches to keep the water under control.”

Hoop House drainage system.

Tim explained something you would never know without getting the inside scoop. When a hoop house is built on the farm, it isn’t just put up with metal stuck in the ground and the sheeting pulled over to cover it. Our team actually builds up the ground below the hoop house with about 3 feet of sand, and in that sand is a huge series of drainage pipes. This keeps the area well drained, water run-off is controlled and the flowers growing in the hoop house don’t get flooded. The main crops growing right now in our hoop houses are our Royal LA Hybrid Lilies, Asiatic Lilies, Iris and Freesia.



Sun Valley's "Royal" LA Hybrids are coming on strong for Thanksgiving.

Our large complex of glass Dutch Greenhouses are where we grow the Oriental Lilies and our soil grown Tulips. These greenhouses have a steel infrastructure, thousands of glass panes, sliding doors and create a very controlled temperature atmosphere. When the rain comes; the humidity in the greenhouses spikes. A little humidity is great for the flowers; a lot of humidity is a recipe for disaster. A high level of humidity will encourage botrytis. Botrytis is the scourge of the flower farm. It is a fungus growth that will rot the stems and buds of lilies and turn them brown. No bueno.

Cold and wet outside, warm and dry inside.

Grower Antoon explained to me what they do to keep the humidity levels in check. The first thing they do is turn on the heat. Not your traditional heat, but a long series of white pipes through which they pump boiling water. This radiant heating system warms up the air in the greenhouse. Warm air holds more moisture than cold air, so the moisture which has accumulated in the greenhouse moves into the air, and away from the lilies and tulips. After a few hours of heat to pull the moisture into the air, the growers open up the vents on the greenhouse.

The hot, moist air rushes out of the greenhouse, rising into the sky, leaving the plants dry and safe from the devil botrytis. This clever system is repeated throughout the wet season and keeps our greenhouses producing year round lilies and tulips.

The first rainbow of the season, taken from the door of our sales office.

lily@tsvg.com

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The Secret is in the Soil

The Secret is in the Soil

#compost dirt Lilies Redwoods soil Tulips

Confess yourself to heaven,
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come,
And do not spread the compost on the weeds
To make them ranker.
                                            -Hamlet

What happens to the flowers that aren’t up to snuff? What happens to all the leaves and stems that get trimmed out? They return to the earth, and get composted on an enormous level. Since we grow our stunning flowers in real soil, we need to be continually replenishing and refortifying our soil supply. What better way to do this than composting all our organic flower waste?

This isn’t like that cute composter in your backyard that makes your kitchen scraps into superb soil for your flower beds or vegetable garden; we compost over 15,000 tons of plant material annually. This operation involves dirt piles 50 feet high, dump trucks and bucket loaders. Have a look at what happens in our compost heaps.

At the beginning of the process, our bulbs are placed in crates with rich soil, packed with nutrients. The bulbs take off in our optimal growing conditions and after the set amount of weeks, the tulips, iris or lilies are harvested. Over the weeks of growing, crews pull out the imperfect stems and keep the area clear of debris. When harvest time comes, an enormous amount of green waste is generated. Using our lilies as an example, each stem is about 44-48 inches long, most get trimmed to 32, 28 or 24 inches. All the foliage below a certain point is also removed; when you are harvesting thousands of stems this equals pallets and pallets of organic waste.


Imperfect lily blooms that have been trimmed and green lily leaves.

This organic waste gets moved by forklifts.  It is combined and dumped into truck to be taken out to the compost area.  This takes some skillful forklift operating and seems to be a never ending task here on the farm.



After the flowers are picked out, a team comes in with forklifts and loads all the individual crates out of the greenhouse.  The crates are stacked on palletes, sometimes with some "late bloomers" still poking up.  These rows of crates get loaded on a flatbed truck and taken out to the compost lot.  Here they get dumped, and then the good crates are taken, washed, disinfected and used again, while the broken ones are recycled.

Late Bloomers

Here the compost stream splits. Tulip soil, old tulip bulbs and all green waste goes into one huge pile.  This combination is left to compost and after it breaks down, it is used to fortify the fields.  Usually being left to go fallow and return nutrients to the soil. 

The lily bulbs and their soil are diverted to a different pile.  The old lily bulbs and the dirt in which they grew are ground up and saved.  After this soil rests for a bit, it will be added back into our soil production.  The soil we grow our lilies in is truly something special.  It is part compost, then a recipe of redwood mulch, two types of fir tree mulch and spruce mulch. The tulip soil is similar but with a little coarse sand in the mix.

I recently spoke with Lane DeVries about this unlikely combination. He says about twenty years ago he started using this mix, and because of the beneficial microbes in the soil. Now, the lilies and tulips have a great natural resistance to diseases due to the soil.  Over the last twenty years, this has virtually eliminated the usage of fungicides to protect against root rot.

I asked Lane what his soil ratio is, hoping to create a special batch for my own garden, thinking maybe he would write out his recipe. Lane smiled deeply as he held imaginary handfuls of soil, "You know, a little of this, a little of that."

I realized this is like asking a fisherman where he caught his trophy fish.  The fishermen replies pointing to his cheek, "right here."

Standing on a compost heap, looking back on fresh soil and the hoop houses of Sun Valley

The same soil elements that grow the world's tallest trees, the Coastal Redwoods (Sequoia Sempervirens) also grow our tall, vibrant tulips and lilies.  Coincidence?  Not a chance.

“The ground's generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty! Try to be more like the ground.”
                                                                                                                             -Rumi

Please forward this email onto all the compost fanatics in your life.

-Lily

Christmas in July

Christmas in July

CA Grown Christmas greens Christmas in July farmer's market flowers for delivery Holiday flowers Redwoods

Since the first ray of bright sunshine hinted at the the start of summer, all I've been thinking about (aside from flowers) is barbecues, sunscreen and swimming. But as it turns out, I should have been thinking about Christmas, of all things. Mind numbed by a warm weather-induced mental vacation, I turned to my team members last week for interesting topics to write about (they came up with a lot!), and someone mentioned the Christmas Greens industry gearing up for the holiday... in July. Aside from the Christmas Planner in Florists Review, I didn't know much about this at all. So, I sat down with our West Coast Evergreen division's greens expert extraordinaire Debbie to learn a bit more about the scent-astic world of Christmas evergreens.


Cedar

The very first thing I asked was "Why Christmas in July?" (Seemed like a good place to start.) She said it boils down to basic preparedness. Think of it this way: Remember Tickle Me Elmo? (Maybe there's a more recent example, but I'm not up on my must-have toys these days.) If you didn't get to that guffawing Muppet in time, you were going to have deal with some serious frowny faces come Christmas morning. Well, it happens pretty much the same way with Christmas Greens. While there sure are a lot of fir, pine and cedar trees out there, they're still a limited resource. The sooner you get to them, the more likely you are to get dibs on the primo varieties. This being Sun Valley, the Pacific Northwest greens we offer are the Tickle Me Elmos of the greens world, the premium stuff. Booking now equates to less frowny faces (read: more smiley faces) among your florist friends!


Douglas Fir

"What are Christmas Greens?" This is pretty basic, but I certainly would not have been able to give you the simplified answer before, which is incidentally Fir, Pine and Cedar. These three greens are the key ingredients that give us the signature smells and textures of Christmas. You could try lighting a candle to get those scents, but honestly nothing but the fresh greens themselves will give you the unique and special aromas. And you certainly won't get the symbolic meaning (evergreens are widely regarded as symbols of "eternal life") from an air freshener!

Our greens come from close surroundings, since our Arcata farm is essentially located in the heart of the Evergreens. Given our prime location, we're able to focus our energies on selecting the best greens available - the quality is based on color tones (we like the blue-green varieties), texture and vase life (it better last through the holiday!). Our close proximty to the product also allows us to obtain the greens when they're at their peak in the growing cycle.


Princess Pine

"How do we get our Christmas Greens?" The gathering of our Christmas greens depends on the season (obviously) and the elevation (interestingly). A general rule of thumb is that Christmas green collecting starts at low elevations, and as the season progresses, the elevation increases. So, right now our greens gatherers are scouting for the best trees, getting the required permits renewed, and collecting Pine Cones. Makes sense since the cones are the lowest to the ground! Juniper is foraged earliest in the season. Further up the hill, Cedar is gathered when its tips set (meaning new growth has stopped) just before the winter chill sets in. Once the first cold snap occurs, Noble Fir is ready to gather. Finally, Pine and Douglas Fir, which pack the most powerful scents, are brought in from the highest elevations until access is restricted due to the mountain snow. 

"Who's bringing the green?" The people gathering our West Coast Evergreens usually consist of families who have been foraging for years. The trade is passed down from generation to generation, which means these folks are incredibly experienced. They have to be, since it's no cake walk getting to some of the greens, especially at high elevations. They must have a profound love of being in the woods as well, since they're spending a good portion of their time among the trees.

"How do you keep the greens green?" This may be common knowledge, but greens in general are the longest lasting part of an arrangement. The same is true for Christmas greens. Before they are ready to be made into wreaths or arrangements, they like to stay in their boxes in cold temperatures (not just cool; their natural environment is cold, so the colder, the better). To prolong their display life, your best bet is to keep them moist - use a spray bottle to give them a light mist. This also gives them a nice sheen. When they're part of an arrangement and the other flowers fade, the greens themselves can be kept and displayed on their own, or just add more flowers for an entirely new arrangement. No matter what, you'll be able to enjoy that fabulous smell throughout the holidays!

After learning a bit more about what goes on with our West Coast Evergreen division this time of year, I'll be thinking of Christmas scents and Santa in addition to sunglasses and sand. If you're already starting to tackle your Christmas list, make sure you put Cedar, Douglas Fir, Princess Pine and Noble Fir at the top of your priority list. Like the Xbox 360 of 2009 or Furbies of 1998, these greens won't be on the shelves long!

And for more ways to enjoy your Christmas greens, check out some of these enhanced bunches:



Red and Green Supreme (Ilex with Cedar)

  

10 stem Tulips and Douglas Fir

 

3 stem Orientals and Cedar

Please visit our resource page to learn more about West Coast Evergreen: http://www.thesunvalleygroup.com/thesunvalleygroup/pdf/SV_RP_WestcoastEvergreen.pdf

And to learn more about our Holiday Tulip Enhanced Bunches, please visit:
http://www.thesunvalleygroup.com/thesunvalleygroup/pdf/SV_RP_HolidayTulipsECB.pdf

Lily's Boots: Pairing Goats' Cheese with Flowers

Lily's Boots: Pairing Goats' Cheese with Flowers

Humboldt County Redwoods

As I mentioned earlier this week, my fabulous Mother is in town, traveling all the way from the Midwest to be here. So, this week I get to play  "Lily, the Tour Guide" (as well as "Lily, the Good Daughter"). Naturally, I have plans to take Mom on a tour of the flower farm. But today, I actually want to share a little bit about another farm tour we had the pleasure of taking: Yesterday, we took an exclusive tour through Cypress Grove Chevre, whose cheese recently won two "Best of Class" awards in the 2010 World Champion Cheese Contest.


Cypress Grove Fresh Chevre

While Humboldt County is perhaps most well-known for having the highest concentration of Redwoods in the world, it also has some of the finest, freshest culinary fair imaginable. Since its humble beginnings in 1983 when "Cheese Master" Mary Keehn founded the company using goat milk she had raised for her family, Cypress Grove has grown to become a major player in this fabulous local feasting scene. It has also built itself a name in the national cheese industry, winning one award after another for its unique tasting, expertly made and cleverly named(!) cheeses.

So naturally, when given the opportunity to get an inside glimpse of Cypress Grove's operations, I jumped on it!


Entrance to Cypress Grove

 When my Mom, my sister and I arrived at the picturesque farm yesterday afternoon, we walked right into a full Cypress Grove cheese tasting, complete with baguette, fig jam and of course, some of the Cypress Grove team. They welcomed us in like family and joked that this was something they do everyday. I couldn't help but fantasize about setting up daily tastings of edible French Tulips or Hyacinths with an array of Cypress Grove cheeses in the desk across from mine, but I digress... (By the way, that was just a fantasy. Please DO NOT eat Frenchies or Hyacinths!)

After our tasting, we were taken over to the viewing section of the production room. Here we saw where the cheese is strained using cheesecloth, packed into molds, turned out, and stored. We also saw the production team doing group stretches in between turning sessions of the five-pound Grande Humboldt Fog! They make a concerted effort to stay limber in order to the turn the large hand-packed cheese wheels, which require daily rotation for about 10 days in order for the surface to properly ripen within the mold. (For a more detailed description of how the cheese is made, click here.)

Cypress Grove Production Room

During the tour, I was quite impressed with the cleanliness of the facility, the comradery and humility of the team, and the local emphasis of the company (Cypress Grove is provided with milk from about eight local farms in Humboldt). I also noticed a few parallels between fine cheese production and cut flower production - really! Here's how producing goats' milk cheeses is similar to producing fresh cut flowers:

1.  Both cheese and flower production processes require precise conditions, such as exact temperature settings and daily tending, for maximum product quality;

2.  Both processes span several days (even months for flowers) before products are ready to ship; and

3.  Both processes result in products that possess the supernatural power of making people happy! (I couldn't resist throwing that in there.)

Having tasted and seen the production of some of my favorite goats' cheese, I feel pretty lucky to have worn my Boots this week. Thank you very much to the folks at Cypress Grove. My family thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

Please be sure to look out for Cypress Grove Chevre in your local upscale or natural foods stores. I promise, you'll be glad you did!