Tulip Tradition

Tulip Tradition

#American Grown Flowers CAGrown summertime tulips Tulip Tradition Tulips year-round tulips

A flower spent should not be said - but
         It's leaving should make us glad - that we
         were privileged to view - a miracle that was
         passing through.

  

One of the best parts of working in the floral industry is all the stories you hear about the flowers. Not just colors, varieties, shapes and sizes, but deep meanings, symbolic actions and thoughtful moments. While the Sun Valley team was down in Miami recently, I spoke with a fellow vendor named Hilliard. He works on the horticulture side of things and we've been booth neighbors at many a show over the years, his accent betrays his tanned skin and his demeanor makes me think of him as a classic British gentleman.

The flower stories I hear are generally positive, yet they often start off with a life changing event.  Several years back Hilliard's mother passed away. Flowers express the inexpressible and sometimes grief and remembrance are the emotions that we have to deal with, taking the bad with the good. When Hilliard's mother died, he and his brothers and sisters took her ashes to the top of a coastal peak in central California. They opened the urn and let the Pacific wind blow the ashes into the sky, said a few prayers, shared some stories and then hiked down the mountain.

Sun Valley Summertime Tulips

Now a dozen years later, Hilliard has one of the more touching traditions I've ever heard. He is an avid mountain biker, still looking fit in his mid-fifties. Every year for his mother's birthday which is in June, he wakes before dawn and hops on his bike with a special cargo tucked into his Camel-Back backpack.

His mother emigrated from England, and all through her life her favorite flower was the tulip, one of the simplest yet poignant flowers cultivated by man. She always had them growing in her garden and explained to her children and grandchildren that they reminded her of the previous life she lived in England.

Every year now, the day before his mother's birthday Hilliard stops by the market and buys a 10 stem bunch of tulips.  As he recounts his tale, he adds that he always looks for our tulips. The folks growing flowers, bushes and all sort of other plants in California have a natural bond. It is cemented by the Pacific Ocean, earthquakes and high real estate prices.  It seems we all do business with people you know, people you can relate to and people you trust.

In the predawn light Hilliard gets on the saddle of his mountain bike and sets out to honor is mom, or "mum" to hear him tell it. After riding a few miles to the old fire road that leads to the peak, he downshifts into the low gears and arduously ascends the mountain.

When he reaches the peak, just as the sun rises in the east, he takes a few minutes to catch his breath, enjoy the view and think about his mom. There is a flat stone placed by time just perfect for such tasks.


When the time feels right, Hilliard takes the tulips from his bag, pulls off the sleeve and snips off the rubber band holding them together. He stands at the edge, looks to the heavens, then back at the beautiful tulips. Then with both hands holding the tulips, he bends his knees and tosses them high into the air, each stem catching the wind and the light differently, spiraling, twirling and spinning into the expanse between here and there.

"Happy Birthday Mum."

Bouquet Diversity

Bouquet Diversity

#americangrown #CAGrown #LetsTalkFlowers 4th of July flowers Flower Talk with Lily Independence Day Iris multiculturalism Tulips

Iris are perfect for 4th of July!

Recently, I took a few moments to just wander around the fields where I work, the Sun Valley Floral Farms. Looking around, the beautiful early summer flowers were blooming: irises, hydrangeas and greenhouses were brimming with tulips and lilies. I took notice of all the sizes and shapes of trucks, production lines and giant coolers. Then I thought to myself, look at all these team members – the most valuable assets of all. 

Horonato has worked at Sun Valley for years; his family is from the Machu Picchu region of Peru.

Sun Valley Floral Farms is so diverse. Where else but America would you get this amazing ethnic blend of people, all united in the complicated task of bringing California-grown flowers to the rest of the country? When you talk to the people who make their living planting, picking and packaging our flowers, you see that Sun Valley is a great example of the American melting pot. It’s like a beautiful bouquet of different skill sets, worldviews and dreams. And just like a bouquet, the people all complement each other.

We have team members that don’t just speak English and Spanish, but Dutch, Laotian, Chinese, Hmong, I-Kiribati, Indonesian, Flemish and we also have a guy from The Bronx, who speaks “New York.”  Lane DeVries, the CEO, realized years ago that a large majority of our team members on our Oxnard farm only spoke Spanish. So he and the rest of the team leaders learned Spanish themselves and now conduct the all-farm meetings in both Spanish and English. 

Sales Rep. Laura Kurtz speaks four languages!

Work on any farm is hard. Yet, the people who work at Sun Valley are dedicated to something as pure and unpretentious as a delicate flower for you to enjoy in your home.  It is a bit humbling to see the work and effort that brings that flower from our hands to yours; this is the American Dream incarnate. 

You find the Stars and Stripes all over our farm.

Right now there are teams out picking bright red tulips and matsumoto asters, fragrant white lilies and lisianthus to be combined with classic blue irises, all American-grown. To brighten up your 4^thof July celebration, make sure to pick-up a Sun Valley Floral Farms red, white and blue bouquet. Then, sit down with your family and take a few moments to appreciate the great country we all share.

Lilies, Red Matsumotos, Eryngium and Bear Grass Bouquet

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Happy Independence Day!

The Best Thing Anyone Can Have

The Best Thing Anyone Can Have

#americangrown #LetsTalkFlowers Flower Talk with Lily Hallmark Holiday Lilies Mother's Day Tulips

“When you are going through hell, Keep Going!”

                                                                          -Winston Churchill

We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it is not an oncoming train.  The flowers have been harvested, the trucks have all left and sales reps are directing traffic, making sure all those boxes go to the right place.  Sun Valley customer service is a bright spot in the melee of Mother’s Day in the floral industry.   Having personal contact, with no phone tree, makes it easy to follow up on an order, check order status, and hopefully share a laugh with our team.

A crew picking Oriental Lilies for Mother's Day

 It’s in your hands now, to make this the most successful Mother’s Day ever. We know florists, wholesalers and floral departments all over the country are in the thick of it.  The coffee is flowing and you are getting your ducks in a row to produce an enormous amount of arrangements and bouquets over the next 72 hours.

Don’t worry; it will all be worth it. The elation flowers bring, the smiles and tears of joy that happen when children of all ages take a moment in time to think about their mom is an event to cherish. We thank all the flower professionals burning the midnight oil to make this day so special.

The most beautiful present for mom, a Sun Valley Lily.

 The cynics of the world call Mother’s Day a “Hallmark Holiday”; claiming occasions such as this are purely motivated by commercialism and consumerism.  I ask these people, what could be more pure than celebrating the woman who brought you into this world.  Maybe I am being selfish when I say, Mother’s Day may trump all other holidays, since without moms having babies all the other holidays would be moot.

In my family, flowers have always been a tradition for Mother’s Day…as well as a fabulous brunch.  As a little boy, I woke up early Sunday morning and picked flowers from our yard and the forest edge, spring time in Rhode Island can yield quite a bounty, if you know where to look.  The flowers were put in a make shift vase, like a juice glass, and accompanied with a hand drawn card, heavy on the crayoned hearts and “XOXO”s.

Now being a father and seeing first-hand the connection between mother and child, the beautiful essence of Mother’s Day is even clearer.   Your mother had more patience, care and love than your father; I bet this can be said for 99% of the world population, it is one of those “hard wired” type things that no amount of science or research can quantify.  When my son has a bad dream and wakes up screaming, is he screaming “Dadddddy”?  No, never.   He is screaming, “Mommmmmy!"

Happy Mother's Day from Sun Valley

Spring time is when flowers bloom in the wild, and when babies are born in the natural world. We are in the great cycle of rebirth and renewal as the longer days and warmer temperatures awaken the landscape. 

The second Sunday in May is a wonderful time to celebrate, and with all the riches, material wealth and technology in the world, a mom is still the best thing anyone can have.

Pieter Landman: The Undercover Martha Stewart

Pieter Landman: The Undercover Martha Stewart

#LetsTalkFlowers Armani Mother's Day Pieter Landman Tulips

This is an “all hands on deck” time of year on the farm and it is a marvel to watch Sun Valley flex it's muscles as the largest cut flower grower and shipper in North America.  Mother’s Day 2013 is coming off without a hitch. We are on 24 hour shifts, for picking, packing and shipping and spirits are running high.

In the heat of the action, we were graced by a visit from Pieter Landman.  Many of our readers may know Pieter for his stunning design work, his engaging presentations and his ridiculously extroverted personality.

I sat down with Pieter to talk about his career in the floral industry, and found the toughest part of interviewing Pieter is getting a word in edgewise.

Flowers are in Pieter’s blood; his father was a tulip grower, so it wasn’t a surprise as Pieter excelled at the Horticultural Institute in Aalsmeer.  After graduating with honors in horticulture, just a few years behind Sun Valley CEO Lane DeVries, Pieter embarked on what would become a grand journey leading him around the world.  In one fell swoop he decided to open a flower shop, start a business as a traveling freelance flower designer and pursue his master degree in floral design.  It seems the day he made this decision may have been the last calm, relaxing day he has had.

Pieter as a young man running his flower shop.

In 1982, Pieter came on the international scene as a designer for Amsterdam Floriade. This is a once a decade flower show in Holland that last for 6 months, it would be an understatement to call this occasion the “Super Bowl” of floral design.  His involvement in this Olympian event led to Pieter being selected as one of six designers with the Flower Council of Holland.  This prestigious position expanded the demand for Pieter’s services.  Realizing he was spreading himself too thin, he elected to close the flower shop, and focus on his career as a floral personality and obtaining his master’s degree.  From 1986 to 1988 we was the host of a first of its kind floral design, home decor and lifestyle TV show in Holland.  Long before HGTV, there was Pieter!

As Pieter gained fame in Holland, his talents were being requested around the world.  You know life is getting surreal when the Sultan of Oman wants you to do his flowers and when you are brought to London to create the floral designs for Wimbledon.  Even back home in Holland the word was out, as the royal family of the Netherlands hired him for their floral needs, perhaps the highest compliment in the flower capital of the world.

With all this acclaim and demand, Pieter could easily have rested on his laurels.  However, he wasn’t even thirty years old.

Tulip necklace, featuring Sun Valley tulips

In the early nineties, he saw the power that mass market accounts would wield in the floral industry. So he set out to study customer behavior in this setting.  He didn’t hire a research firm, he hit the streets himself.  He traveled across the United States and Europe, standing in supermarket floral areas, seeing what people were buying and talking to customers.  By asking people what they like, what they want and occasionally getting chased out by zealous managers (To this day he is very quick on his feet!) Pieter was able to discern a huge problem in the floral industry. Flower buying customers did not like what the mass market stores were offering, people were not satisfied with the designs and most of the people he spoke to were extremely underwhelmed by what the mass market industry was doing with flowers.

Pieter in Holland

Pieter started making flower arrangements that people actually wanted and which could be produced in a mass market atmosphere.  This customer centric approach to selling flowers shocked the major flower buyers at US chains, and set up the foundation for his company Blooming Vision. Blooming Vision’s goal is to bring flowers to the consumer in the way they like it.

 

Pieter says, “I listen to what the consumer wants and likes …that’s what I bring.” 

 

Today, Pieter's influence and foresight can be seen in virtually every floral department in the United States.   

Behind this man, who seems very complex on the outside, is actually a person striving for simplicity.  This is perhaps the root of his genius.  His modest origins of growing up on the Dutch country side among the rows of tulips have served him well.  Pieter’s humorous tales of rubbing elbows with the world’s elites, always have a cavalier confidence that leads him out on a limb, only to be pulled back in by the person he needs to impress.

Armani in Milan, Italy

A classic tale is his first day consulting for Giorgio Armani in Milan.  Mr. Armani came down from his penthouse, as he does everyday at 4 p.m., to the retail front of the flagship store and asked Pieter,

“What's wrong with this flower department? No one buys the flowers.”

Pieter replied, “People don’t know the flowers are for sale, it looks like a museum in here.”

  

Jaws hit the ground, as no one speaks to Mr. Armani so frankly.

Pieter walked behind the counter to the sink, and splashed water on the counter and onto the floor.  He grabbed bunches of flowers from the manicured vases, and laid them on the pristine marble and glass counter tops.  He started snipping them into fresh arrangements, all while the wet greenery stuck to the marble and the stems of the cut flowers shot out into the haute couture capital of  Europe.

   

As he chatted about what he was doing with the flowers, the customers started walking up and asking if they could buy the arrangements.  Pieter said, 

“Yes of course, but you have to ask these guys how much they cost.” using his clippers to point at Mr. Armani and his entourage.

Mr. Armani said, “I think you have something here.” and walked away.  Years later Pieter is still consulting with Armani.

Pieter started working for Sun Valley in 2004.  He has since become an intricate part of the Sun Valley family.  You find his designs and presentations running all through our last ten years.  Pieter's energy and his generosity with his time and effort have been the basis of a great relationship.

 

“No matter where I go, I am identified with Sun Valley, I am very proud of this affiliation and the work we have accomplished.”

Pieter creating a series of tulip wreaths.

Pieter was on our farm in Arcata filming a series of videos showing how to make beautiful, modern arrangements from our soil grown tulips and other Sun Valley flowers.  Stay tuned for when we release these great “how to” spots.

When asked about what draws him to flowers, Pieter takes a more serious tone.  It is suddenly apparent how dedicated to his craft and how very thoughtful he is about flowers.

 

“Flowers create a smile, whether a single stem or a huge bunch, flowers are always appreciated.  A flower is never returned because it didn’t fit or was the wrong size.  Flowers fill every home, from a palace to a camping tent. I want to bring flowers to whomever likes them.”

After a brief pause, he continues, “And you know what? One day, Tiffanys in New York will be selling flowers; that is one of my goals.”

Mother's Day ~ Let's Get It On!

Mother's Day ~ Let's Get It On!

#americangrown #LetsTalkFlowers CA Grown Dubium Matsumoto Asters Mother's Day Ornithogalum Tulips

"Let's get it on!"

When Marvin Gaye sang these immortal words he must have been thinking about Mother's Day in the floral biz.  All throughout Sun Valley, the energy level is rising and everyone is feeling the vibe. It’s going to be a wild few weeks until we hit May 12^th.  We all know Mother's Day is crazy for flower growers, but did you know it is also the single day with the most long distance calls of the year?

So what crops are we still flush with?

Matsumoto Asters, White Dubium and of course, Tulips. 

Hot Pink Matsumoto Asters

Time to celebrate MatsuMania 2013!  Our Sun Valley Matsumotos are known for their bright colors, big blooms and tall sturdy stems. The red, purple, pink and lavender colors are all coming in strong.  The weather changed just perfectly at our Oxnard farm this spring to provide us with a bumper crop.  Gerrit in Oxnard is responsible for growing this epic crop, now all of YOU need to come through and find a home for these beauties. 

Red Matsumoto Asters

I feel like Matsumotos are often one of the unsung crops of the farm.  We are known for our impressive tulip production, year round Telstar iris production and our jaw dropping lilies.   It seems these unique flowers live in the shadows.  This is not the case right now, Matsumotos are standing up, so you better take notice.  They are also bursting out of our bouquet department, have you checked out these bouquets, let us do the work for you!

White Dubium progression

Two weeks ago I wrote about Dubium Ornithogalum, imagine Star of Bethlehem on steroids.  We have an abundance of the white variety, which is perfect as a focal or in a supporting role in your Mother's Day designs.  This plant is really well known in horticulture circles, and you will often see this as a potted plant in garden centers or supermarket floral departments.  We have been getting a really positive response from our customers on this crop as a cut flower, it is definitely an up and coming "cut" flower, and will add a little spice to whatever you use it for.  One of its' outstanding qualities, is an almost freakish vase life.  These plants are native to arid regions of Africa and the Middle East. They survive three weeks and beyond, after the blooms start to open in a progression up the stem.  You could give your Mom a big bunch of these with some greenery for Mother's Day, and still be enjoying them at Father's Day!

 

"The secret of success is consistency of purpose" -Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, British Prime Minister)

Consistency of purposesums up the Sun Valley Tulip program.  Our soil grown, greenhouse tulips maintain the highest quality year round.  We strongly believe that offering a consistent, dependable product is the key to return business.  Whether you are a wholesaler selling tulips to florists or a mass marketer selling tulips to the general public, if you sell poor a quality tulip you are poisoning your next sale.  When a customer is buying from you they are already committed to the sale, however, the next sale is what you should be thinking about.  Consistency creates return business, better relationships, and in the end, builds your customers trust.

  

Is there anything more valuable or precious in business than your customers trust?