Orchid Sales

[jtill]

Subject: Re: Top Flowers in US and Canada Answered By: jdb-ga on 15 Jul 2006 18:20 PDT Rated: Hello,

I am responding to your question on the top 3 commercially grown flowering plants (the industry refers to this category as "potted flowering plants") in the U.S. and Canada by value and volume, percentage of thesthat are greenhouse grown, and the top states and provinces for growing these. The top three potted flowering plants in the US are poinsettias, orchids and chrysanthemums. In Canada it is geraniums, poinsettias and chrysanthemums. Everything is grown in green houses except Hawaii orchids. I calculated from the information below that subtracting Hawaii's non-greenhouse grown orchids from the U.S. nationwide total finds that 85.1% of U.S. commercial potted orchids are greenhouse grown.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This April 2006 US Dept of Agriculture report on floraculture shows the largest volume potted flowering plants to be poinsettia, orchid, then chrysanthemum:

"Potted Flowering Plants: California accounts for 25 percent of the category's total value. Poinsettia value, which adds $242 million to this category, is down 2 percent from 2004. The value of Potted Orchids is $144 million, up 11 percent from the previous year. Florist Chrysanthemum value is up 1 percent, to $68.9 million."

To answer an earlier question I had I found the above information. With Orchid sales growing why is AOS failing? Strange.

[KTTT]

The AOS serves a population of mainly experienced growers, hobbyists. This population seems to reduce in numbers based on the closing of many US-based orchid nurseries and the unavailability of high quality orchids, not mentioning the recent economic downturn.

Today orchid buyers are not AOS readers. They are simply just buying orchid flowers and throwing away the plants after killing them.

[Diana Kulaga]

KTTT -

I think it goes deeper than that. There have been numerous discussions about the AOS on this board. Some have been heated. One thing we all agree on is that we would like the AOS to succeed.

You are certainly correct that as orchids have become more accessible many people are buying them to keep only for the length of time they bloom. But if you are a regular reader of rgo, you know that the majority of contributors here are serious and passionate about this hobby. Yet many are not AOS members.

Diana

[Ted Byers]

The way stores like Walmart and Home Depot sell them may contribute to the phenomenon where "many people are buying them to keep only for the length of time they bloom". They bring in, and sell, lots of orchids, though of a limited variety. But they also provide little to no information about them. When I see people there, either staff or people looking to buy orchids, few know that orchids can bloom more than once if well cared for. They do occasionally get good plants (such as the Cymbidiums I got at Walmart recently), but they treat them as disposable. They are improving, a little, in that, for the first time in my experience, the Cymbidiums I bought actually had labels identifying the hybrid (and I found these on the internet, with descriptions consistent with the plants I bought). But they encourage the notion that they ought to be thrown out once the bloom fades by their practice of throwing their stock out if they are not sold before their blooms fade. One would think they wouldn't throw out such stock if they knew the plants would rebloom in a year.

I suspect most people who buy orchids, even from Walmart (a place where people seek bargains) or Home Depot (a place serving do-it- yourselfers), would try to keep them going if they knew orchids would rebloom. The problem is, at least with the people I have talked to, they don't know it is possible, or how to do it. And while it is easy to find info on the Internet, many of the folk I have spoken to could be described as luddites WRT IT (these are amazing people when it comes to skill to work with their hands, but IT is an alien thing to them: they're no more able to use the net than I am able to rewire a house or upgrade the plumbing in my bathroom). Perhaps the various orchid societies need to get more creative in marketing themselves? Or perhaps it isn't in orchid vendors' interest to educate their customers? Or perhaps I am getting too cynical in my old age?

Cheers,

Ted