stop acting like a flower.

They do all this for flowers. Airplanes fly in from Bogotá and trucks drive from Miami and acres of greenhouses get built and billions of dollars change hands. All that for the alstroemerias you pick up at the grocery store as an afterthought. [...] The cut flower trade is all about this struggle between what is natural and unspoiled and what is mass produced and commercialized.
-Amy Stewart, Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers

Products are easily accessible. A customer simply has to walk, bike, or drive to a store and purchase whatever their heart desires. The same is true with flowers. Walk into any grocery store or flower shop and one may find a vast array of flowers that magically happen to be there despite the fact that many of them are not in season (in terms of fresh produce, think about fruits and vegetables). Tulips in fall, sunflowers in winter, roses all year round. Most florists do not have acres of flowers growing in their backyard just like one won't find a farm behind a favorite grocery store. Flowers are a global business, trucked and flown in from around the world so the consumer can have whatever flower they want whenever they need it. "Orchids from Thailand. Tulips from Holland. Lilies from Colombia. Ginger blossoms from Hawaii" (Stewart, 4).

Unlike food, flowers have no nutritional value. Unlike art, their beauty does not last. Despite this, Americans purchase more than 4 billion flowers a year (4). The business of buying and selling flowers is nothing new, in fact, it is most likely one of the oldest businesses in the world, dating back thousands of years. So why do we pay for something we could get for free? Flowers are one of the best forms of a mood stabilizer without interacting with one's chemical messengers inside the brain. Purely visual, sometimes sensual, they have a certain cheerfulness about them that can't quite be replaced by anything else, except perhaps, more flowers or a foray into nature.



The supreme irony of cut flower breeding lies in the fact that we use all of the science and technology available to us to make a flower stop acting like a flower (Stewart, 21).

In terms of lilies, there are three main types: trumpet lilies, Asiatic hybrids, and Oriental hybrids. For years, breeders were obsessed with trying to find a way to combine the upward-facing characteristic of the Asiatics with the the bold and fragrant-producing Orientals (20). This became possible by a man named Leslie Woodriff. Somewhat of a mad-scientist, Woodriff was obsessed with lily breeding, not necessarily to monopolize on the fortune of creating new breeds, but because he was consumed with the art of lily creation. Woodriff would cross-breed in the simplest of manners: dusting pollen from one lily onto the stigma of another. Now, most hybridizers are geneticists, not plant enthusiasts like Woodriff. While he probably created hundreds of new lily breeds, he barely labeled his work and some of his breeds were lost in a complicated dispute with Sun Valley Farms (30).

Woodriff created the stargazer in the late 70s and both he and Sun Valley Farms barely made anything off this new creation, even though it is one of the most popular selling lilies ever. The Dutch, however, bought the patent to sell the stargazer in Holland and made a fortune. Without Woodriff, the stargazer lily would probably not exist. Now one of the most popular lilies around, it can be found in virtually every flower shop across the country, if not the world. Its upward-facing blooms and bright color make it a must-have for any florist.

*Woodriff also created "Black Beauty," a dark red lily edged in silver, and "White Henryi," a white lily with a butterscotch blush and cinnamon-colored freckles (37).

tiptoe through the tulips...

First of all, I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season. We were quite busy at Ben White Florist, stumbling around the shop trying to make our way through all of the poinsettias, while also trying to have functional respiratory systems amidst all of the cedar, pine, and lovely (and allergy-inducing) winter greens. Despite the allergies, the holiday season was quite lovely.

Now, on to the present: the tulips have finally arrived! Each year, we anxiously wait for these delectable Holland treats, biting our nails in anticipation of their glorious and somewhat celestial arrival. For a measly $10, you, our dear and devoted customer, can have an entire bunch of these gorgeous ladies to enjoy in your very own home. Why not bring a piece of history home with you? Interesting factoid: Tulips were responsible for the very first economic speculative bubble, their price being 10 times more expensive than a skilled craftsman's yearly salary (Thank you, Wikipedia). So, be a part of tulip mania and pretend like you are living during the 17th century Dutch Golden Age. Treat yourself to some royal flowers. Plus, since tulips aren't really associated with the winter, fool yourself into thinking it's spring! I swear, once you have a vase full of tulips in your house, you'll never be unhappy again.