Romance and flowers go hand in hand.
Valentine’s Day is one of the biggest holidays for cut flower sales, and a few local companies in San Diego County are growing and selling their flowers across the region and beyond.
North County, in particular, is home for a lot of cut flower growing.
“Here in Carlsbad we grow lilies, it's an Asiatic lily,” said Dramm Echter Farms President Bob Echter, speaking inside his Carlsbad warehouse. "Down in Mexico we grow mostly Gerbera daisies and an oriental lily, like the Casablanca, (and) Stargazer.”
His company used to operate in Encinitas just a few years ago, but Echter said he moved operations to Carlsbad and Rosarito, Mexico, due to climbing costs and a shift to a more international cut flower market.
Regardless of growing location, many of his flowers are still sold across the region.
Echter said his customers range "from Albertsons, all the way down to a smaller chain like Gelson's (Markets) or Bristol Farms, but also large retail flower shops in the county … and even people that have roadside stands.”
Despite mounting challenges to grow cut flowers in San Diego County, some farmers continue to keep it fully local, like Michael Mellano.
He spoke with KPBS while standing in a field of delphiniums — grown in far east Oceanside.
“It's one of our core crops that we produce in the months of January through about Mother’s Day,” the Mellano & Company CEO said. “And this particular field is one we have set up (to bloom) in time for Valentine's Day.”
His organization grows a wide variety of filler-type flowers and foliage and is responsible for the sea of colors that springs up from the Carlsbad Flower Fields each year.
“All told, we farm about 400 acres — 300 acres here in San Luis Rey and 100 acres where we oversee the production of the Ranunculus at the flower fields in Carlsbad,” Mellano said.
Ranunculus are the flowers that give the Carlsbad fields their famous colors.
Those blooms play a bigger role than just the beauty of the fields — some are sold as cut flowers too.
“The plants only produce one or two good florist grade flowers per plant, yet each plant blooms with about 15 flowers,” said Carlsbad Flower Fields General Manager Fred Clarke. “The uncut flowers make the spectacular show that we all know and love as The Flower Fields.”
Clarke said the recent rains were beneficial for their crops — which are starting to show their true colors.
“We plant the crops sequentially, starting at the north end. And about every three weeks we plant about seven acres and that moves to the south,'' Clarke said. “The crops start blooming in early March and the last flowers bloom at Mother’s Day.”
The official flower fields season kicks off on March 1 for people from far and wide to come and enjoy the rainbow of hues.
In the meantime, Mellano said to look for stickers marking flowers as California- or American-grown when buying cut flowers.
He said those are the best indicators of what just might be blooms and foliage farmed in San Diego.
