A Florists Visit to California Flower Farms

Our good friend Georgianne Vinicombe from Monday Morning Flower and Balloon Co recently ventured on a personal trip to sunny California.  Her love of flowers couldn’t keep her away from wanting to visit some farms, so we put her in touch with a few of our vendors.  Below is a summary of the trip from her perspective.  We hope you enjoy!

A Florists Visit to California Flower Farms

Whenever Kevin and I travel, we never seem to stay away from flowers and floral shops, so imagine our delight when we were able to get out to California to visit a few flower farms.

First stop, Ocean View Farms in Lompac, Ca.  Our wonderful tour guide, otherwise known as Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Dan Vordale did a bang up job of making these two Jersey folks feel at home in the Stock Fields…and what a sight to be behold. Row upon row of sweet smelling, colorful stock flowers – wow! Dan explained about how it’s planted, nurtured and ultimately harvested. We learned that they actually move where they farm during the year to follow the proper growing climate.  I wonder if florists know how hard they work to offer these amazing flowers all year-round.

Let’s face it, what florist wouldn’t want to see a Gerbera Daisy growing operation and there’s none finer than Ever-Bloom Farms.  Our next stop was a tour planned with Sue, who is the Director of Sales. Sue has been with Ever-Bloom for 28 years and knows everything Gerbera! With over 14 acres of greenhouses growing every color imaginable of these fun and flirty flowers, each row was prettier than the next.  Susan explained how they are planted and grown hydroponically – very cool – and how long it takes them to mature and how they harvested. Did you know they are such a happy, fast growing crop that they work 6 days a week to make sure they cut them at just the right time for shipping to florists all over the country?  We especially enjoyed seeing the sorting carts filled with an array of assorted colored Gerberas.

Last but not least was our visit to the amazing Mellano and Company. Once again we were treated like royalty and shown around by CEO Mike Mellano. Learning about their amazing operation was both informative and mind boggling! 400 acres of various foliages and flowers was truly a sight to see. My personal favorite was the long hedges of baby blue eucalyptus. Growing everything from myrtle to ruscus to delphinium to baby’s breath and even test crops of marigolds. Thank goodness for Mike’s truck to get us up and down the hills and valleys.  Their flowers and foliages were grown both under little tents and right out in the California sunshine.  Founded in 1925, it really was a privilege to have an inside look at this amazing growing operation.