The life of a flower – From Field to Vase
It is a huge journey the flowers take until they reach your home, many flowers in a bunch actually originate from different countries. Notably almost all flowers are imported from Kenya, Holland, Isreal and up until recently a large part of South Africa are now creating the resources needed to grow flowers. Even so, here in the UK we still do supply ourselves with our own home grown. In fact most bulb plants will originate from Scotland and the South of England will grow most of our roses and iris’s. Finally Lincoln is the biggest supplier of our beautiful Freesia’s.
There is a whole array of possibilities the flowers can take to reach their recipient. Obviously this depends on the country of origin for that flower. It’s common for the flower company, who grow their own flowers in what is known as a flower nursery, and then send them out using a courier service directly to the recipient. There is a large number of companies that buy flowers in bulk and then bunch the flowers themselves and distribute them to supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsbury’s and leave them to sell them.
To transport the flowers it is common practice that the flowers are placed on flat packs, therefore this is more efficient as more can be loaded on to the one carrier. As you will know, most flowers cannot survive for very long without water, for this reason each stem is fitted with a small test tube style device filled with enough water to see the flower to its next port of call, this is usually the case for tropical flowers such as bird of paradise.
During transport it is essential that the flowers are kept cool, if they are kept in warm conditions they will very quickly begin to wilt. When they are transported by flight, it is a very swift operation. Flower worker will usually cut the flowers in the van on the way to the airport to save time. They will then be loaded very quickly onto the courier plan in large fridges. At the arrival port the next refrigerated van in on site ready to take quick receipt of the flowers. Depending on the flight time, shift workers will always be ready at the studio to arrange the flowers ready for delivery on that day.
Prestige flowers, when they receive an order, they get these fresh flowers and send them out the same day. That’s quite a journey, but all this effort is to ensure flowers will be delivered fresh. Click the bottom link to find out how to keep your flowers fresher for longer.
http://www.prestigeflowers.co.uk/flower_press/top-5-make-your-flowers-stay-fresher-for-longer-17724/