An Exotic Flower

The HELICONIAS (sorry, I really do not know how you call this flower in English, maybe with the pictures you can know).

The Heliconias are herbaceous perennial whose size varies between 3.94 inches to almost 33 feet. Just like all living things, Heliconias have a cycle of existence: once they have grown, flourished and multiplied. The plant begins to show signs of tiredness, as if it already served its time and dies, but that is when a new stem sprouts that replaces the old one and can reach a height from 4 feet and almost 33 feet as mentioned before. The bracts are the most visible organs of the Heliconia generally of primary colors or metallic.


This plant is very elegant, and it is always interesting. Most Heliconias grow below 600 meters in the wetlands of the tropics, with Colombia the country with more varieties, it is said that nearly 100 approximately.

The Heliconia, in fact, it is a genus that includes more than 100 species of tropical plants, originating in South America, Central America, Pacific Islands and Indonesia. Heliconias are known by several common names such as: platanillo, bird of paradise, or lobster grinding down the colorful bracts that surround the flowers.

 Well, I hope you like Heliconias by now, they are definitely an exotic flower, full of color, and unbelievable forms.

The Orchid

The orchid is the national flower of Colombia. Also, orchids are one of the most valuable assets of Colombia and well known around the world. This beautiful type of flower specifically the Cattleya Trianae is the one that represents Colombia.

According to a legend from Latin mythology, the son of a faun and a nymph, known as Orchis, after his death, came to life in the form of an orchid. From this moment, men who want to seduce a woman, usually give her a bouquet of orchids from which arises an uncontrollable passion.
The orchid is considered a very effective aphrodisiac although it is unclear if its wonderful effects is due to its delicious aroma, their strange and exotic way or just the legend.

Many orchids grow wild: on the rocks, on trees, and on the ground. In Colombia, orchids appear from the sea to the high mountains, at altitudes between 300 and 3850 meters, flowering during the months of March and April.

Orchids are distinguished from other plants or flowers by some floral characteristics. Flowers open on any other flower stalks, however, during development, the stem is rotated 180 degrees, so that the mature flower is upside down.The three sepals and two of the three petals are usually similar in color and shape, however, the remaining petal called lip, is always different from others: bigger, different color and shape.

 

In the late nineteenth century came the great European orchid boom. The boatloads of these were western countries' plants to Europe for the courts of the nobility. However, orchids are not aristocratic plants, and are not very expensive and difficult to grow. Maybe they were in the nineteenth century, but today when you travel to Colombia, especially in the departments of Antioquia, Caldas, and Valle del Cauca, runs into precious orchid with familiar names such as: Josephine, beetles, Rod San Jose, May Flower, grow in post or open their petals to the roofs of mud.

More About Colombian Flowers

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Is There More to Colombian Flowers Besides Their Charming?

You bet there is!
Each of the Colombian producers of flowers have their regular workers. These workers have their own families, the kids of these workers are put in a hard position.
As mentioned in other posts, Colombia as the second exporter of flowers of the world needs hard workers all year around. However, the life of any Colombian workers it is not as easy as for others workers in many different countries as United States. The average Colombian employee works an amount of 50 to 60 hours even though it is supposed to be 40. For a country like Colombia with a bad economy, people cannot have the privilege to work 40 hours and support their families with a minimum wage equivalent to $295 dollars, almost impossible to survive.
Therefore, parents take any jobs available in order to provide to their families. It is a risk their willing to take, even though it means no family time nor time for anything else. As the last Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe Velez used to say "es hora de trabajar, trabajar, y trabajar," which in English is "it is time to work work, and work."
I recommend watching the following video and listen to the kids of the flower business employees.

Flowers, A Business in Which Failures Abound

While for St. Valentine's day many restaurants around the world were filling up with couples in love, the Colombians who are involved in the flowers business, draining ten days of stress and little sleep were trying to sell their flowers up to the last minute. This St. Valentine's day of 2013, the flowers sold well.
Macarena Farms, a company owned by two Colombians living in New York, Nicolas Martinez and Juan Pablo Sanz, showed a great example of sales for St. Valentine's day 2013. Macarena Farms sold around $300,000 in New York and the surrounding areas, the 25% of the annual cash flow of Macarena Farms. There were 500,000 stems of roses made in Suesca, Cundinamarca (Colombia), 14% of what the farms produces annually in its 5 hectares, which finally made it to the most prestigious flower shops in New York as Starbright Floral.
In United States, there are two major days for the flower business; St. Valentine's day and mothers day, but the problem for the flower business raises the rest of the year. For growers it is not easy to maintain profit margins. In the summer the demand for flowers stops. During the three months many flower businesses have to throw the flowers away and face loss.
Although, the stem on St. Valentine's day sells from 60 to 70 cents here in United States, the real annual percentage is 30 cents, because when flowers are not in season the flower business do not sell a flower for more than 38 cents. With production costs of 26 cents in Colombia and around 60 permanent employees, Macarena Farms has annual revenues of approximately $2000,000 in a good year.
This is why the special dates such as mothers' day and St. Valentine's day are the moments of "sell or die," for small and medium business says Martinez. Success pretty much depends on a delicate balance. Luck is also a huge factor mentions Sanz, a good year could also depend on no frost damage of production and that the price of the dollar maintains stable.
In conclusion, the flower business for small and medium size companies is an every day struggle, but it is important for this companies to keep an eye open for the always unpredictable demand in United States, that comes and goes depending on the pocket of love, willing to spend for a dozen of roses, which in New York is around $75 dollars.

I would recommend to this companies not to base their entire profit on flowers, but to find another complement to their business. What do you think?

02/13/2013

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Colombian Flowers Ready for the World

On February 5, 2013 Asocolflores announced through the Colombian business newspapers that their flowers were ready to be ship. As mentioned on the previous blog, Colombia was distributing around 500 million of flowers for St. Valentine's Day, an amount that makes Colombia as the second exporter of flowers in the world.
Augusto Solano, president of Asocolflores said that from the total of flowers planted in Colombia 97% goes to other countries. Of this 97%, United States gets 76%, Russia 5%, Japan 4%, and England 3%.
Colombia has consolidated in recent decades as the second largest exporter of flowers with a presence of 16% in the global market after Holland.
Well, I hope all the ladies get to enjoy some gorgeous Colombian flowers tomorrow, and I hope you have a better understanding on how meaningful flowers can be, not only for the ones receiving them, but also for those that planted the seed in the ground.