Or better yet, where do all the flowers come from? Our instructor gave us a brief, floral history lesson last week. Where do all the flowers that we buy come from? Every day in the flower market in Aalsmeer, Holland between 5:30a.m. and 11:00a.m. hundreds of different types of flowers are auctioned, each of which has a multitude of varieties. For example, there are 300 kinds of gerberas, over 500 types of chrysanthemums and 400 different varieties of roses. In addition, most flowers are available in different quality classes and stem lengths. Hundreds of importers from all over the world are represented and approximately 21 million flowers and plants are traded. Wow, that’s a lot of flowers! You can learn more about the auction in Aalsmeer here.
If our instructor places an order with his buyer in Holland by 11:00a.m. eastern standard time, his order is fulfilled and delivered to his floral shop the very next day. The flowers are flown from Aalsmeer, Holland to John F. Kennedy airport in New York and trucked to their various floral shop destinations.
A large percentage of the flowers that we buy come from Holland, but some flowers are imported from South America and flown into Miami. Then they’re trucked up to New York. Others are trucked across the United States from California to New York. Wherever their point of origin may have been, it doesn’t matter to me. I love them all! There’s nothing like the scent of fresh flowers.
In honor of the national flower of the Netherlands, the tulip, I present for your viewing pleasure a few images of some red, striped tulips. I purchased these at a local Trader Joe’s supermarket. Shhhh!!! Don’t tell my instructor. He’ll have a fit!
Until next time, here’s a kiss and a smile! 🙂
