From Hawaii to your living room

Shipments of Hawaii-grown cut flowers and tropical greenery — anthurium, orchids, fiddlehead ferns, gingers, heliconia, Monstera deliciosa and more — are arriving weekly at retail outlets in Canada, including direct delivery to two florist shops in Winnipeg. Following a heady tour of the floriculture industry in Hawaii in August to learn first-hand about opportunities for international trade, many more orders will be on the way.

I travelled with representatives from Canadian businesses as part of an agricultural trade mission hosted by the Hawaii Division of Agriculture and the Western United States Agricultural Trade Association. The Canadian buyers included Family Flowers (Ontario), The Floral Fixx and Beyond Flowers (Manitoba), Mainland Floral Distributors and Hunters Garden Centre & Flower Shop (British Columbia), as well as representatives from Save-on-Foods. The escorted tour was led by Sharon Hurd, market development branch, Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

The first leg of our journey took us to Hilo, which is located on the northeastern side of the island of Hawaii. We visited many nurseries, including West Coast Nurseries, California & Hawaii Foliage Growers and Big Island Plant & Foliage, but it was the visit to Green Point Nurseries that truly encapsulated the enthusiasm and potential for uniquely Hawaiian flowers to be shipped direct from the Big Island of Hawaii to Canadian buyers.

On the day we visited Green Point Nurseries, the humidity was 100 per cent. Like so many places around the world, Hawaii saw record-breaking temperatures this summer. High temperatures, though, won’t slow down Hawaiian growers who are united in helping the floriculture industry recover from last year’s eruption of Mount Kilauea. According to the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR), the agricultural industries with the highest reported losses were floriculture and nurseries at US$13.3 million.

The floriculture industry in Hawaii is the second largest in the Aloha State. Eric Tanouye, president of Green Point Nurseries, says that the value is estimated at US$80 million.

"What’s unique about our floriculture industry is that we are small family farms spread out all over the state primarily in rural areas," he says. What I found even more interesting is that Tanouye says nursery growers farm on land that nobody else wants to farm on.

"We are growing our crops and running our businesses on land that has very little soil," he says. In some cases, the land consists of pure rock. Yet the farmers have adapted, and not only have they learned to grow their flower crops on less-than-ideal land, the flowers they produce are world-class. This has everything to do with the determination and vision of growers like Tanouye, but also the impressive amount of support provided to the floriculture industry by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture and the cutting-edge breeding by researchers at CTAHR.

Kilauea’s explosive eruption last year inundated several family farms, including 40 acres of orchid farms. "If you have a tornado, hurricane, flood, damaging rainstorm or mudslide, you can usually rebuild and get your life back in order," Tanouye says. "With an inundation, you cannot go back to your land — it is condemned."

If you have a mortgage, however, you are still responsible for payments.

Tanouye is president of the Hawaii Floriculture and Nursery Industry (HFNA), which kicked into high gear to assist the flower growers who lost their farms. Close to 50 per cent of Hawaii’s cut flower orchid production was affected. Enter the breeding program at CTAHR, which is now in the process of growing new plants from the germplasm of orchid varieties that otherwise might have been lost forever.

The range of varieties of cut flowers that Green Point Nurseries ships to countries around the world is nothing short of spectacular. Gloria Sawatzky, co-owner of Beyond Flowers, placed an order on the spot. Julie Pritchard, owner of The Floral Fixx, has already received multiple orders, including one for a bride who wanted pale pink anthurium with a touch of peach.

Green Point grows 14 different varieties of anthurium in many different colours – blush, brown, coral, dark red, green, white, lavender, as well as unique bi-colour varieties. The heart-shaped part is called the spathe. The tail-like part is the spadix. Anthurium comes in a wide range of sizes and has an impressive vase life – close to three weeks.

Notably, the global competitive edge that Hawaii’s anthurium cut-flower industry can proudly lay claim to can be attributed in large part to breeders at CTAHR who work closely with designers. Plant breeders naturally are concerned with disease resistance but the success of the cut flower industry also depends on uniqueness. "What’s important to a designer is the flow – how anthurium will look in an arrangement," says Tanouye. "Our breeding program produces anthurium varieties that have a curve or lift to the spathe," says Tanouye. "Designers are telling us they like the movement of our anthurium."

But designers and florists are interested in many additional aspects as well. Other criteria include vase life, surface texture, proportion of colours, amount of edging, stem length, flower shape, colour transition, and how the colouring blends with other flowers. It’s a tall order but because the Hawaiian growers, designers, and breeders work so closely together, there is the perfect marriage of art and science.

Tanouye goes back to the importance of uniqueness. Tissue culture propagation is a game-changer because of the new cultivars it produces. "The University of Hawaii’s breeding program is a jewel because it produces so many new cultivars for our floriculture industry," he says. "In our business you need new product – you need to introduce new colour, new texture, and new visuals."

Hitomi Gilliam is a renowned Japanese Canadian floral artist and consultant who lives in British Columbia. Gilliam works closely with the floriculture industry in Hawaii and gives many workshops. We were fortunate to attend a wedding workshop while we were in Maui where Gilliam demonstrated Tropical Nouveau, a new floral design trend that combines tropical flowers with temperate flowers. Tropical nouveau styling, for example, might include a soft, romantic pairing of pastel pink anthurium with David Austin garden roses, orange asclepias, tropical foliage, and wispy vine.

Not all of the nurseries we visited in Hawaii are currently shipping their products to Canada. The purpose of the trip was to explore possibilities. Green Point Nurseries, however, ships direct from Hawaii to Canada in just two days. The litmus test for exporting tropical flowers to Canada is proper packing and temperature control during shipping. When Gloria Sawatzky, owner of Beyond Flowers, placed an order for anthurium, heliconia, ginger and oncidium orchid in September, she couldn’t have been more delighted with the quality and freshness of the flowers when they arrived.

I dropped into The Floral Fixx to see the Hawaii-grown tropicals that Julie Pritchard ordered. She was also thrilled with the quality and freshness. I was impressed by the gleaming green foliage and especially the dramatic size of the big tropical leaves. Pritchard says that tropical nouveau styling is growing in popularity and is excited to work with the exotic varieties of tropical flowers and foliage.

colleenizacharias@gmail.com