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National flower shortage branches into local flower shops

By Katherine Mansfield newsroom@.Com 5 min read
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Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield

Bundles of roses arrive at local florist shops ahead of Valentine’s Day. Florists cut and prepare the roses and keep them in water until it’s time to add the classic flower to arrangements.

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Diane Scalamogna said roses are widely available ahead of Valentine’s Day, but wholesalers were asked to purchase assorted colors instead of bulk-buying just red or just pink before the holiday. (Photo by Katherine Mansfield)

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Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield

Peace lilies and other exotic plants and flowers have been in short supply since the pandemic began.

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Katherine Mansfield

The flower shortage has forced local florists to get creative with their arrangements. A snapdragon is often substituted for the white stock flower in this arrangement when the ruffled white stock is unavailable.

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Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield

When certain flowers are unavailable, local florists work with customers to find flower or color substitutes for that arrangement. Local flower shops always try to substitute a flower at a similar price-point to the customer’s original order.

Henry Matisse once said, “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

For nearly two years, however, certain flowers have been absent from local florist shops.

“I couldn’t get white carnations, and that’s a common flower,” said Janet Baxendell, who has managed The Perfect Arrangement & Lily Bee’s in Waynesburg for 12 years. “Sympathy (arrangements) – that’s one of our biggest sellers here. I have orders on back-order constantly with wind chimes, lanterns. There definitely is a shortage. It just depends on what flower it is.”

Exotic flowers are especially hard for Baxendell to stock. Larry Jones, who runs Washington Square Flower Shop in Washington, is also having a difficult time filling his storefront with plants and products that were once an order away.

“The peace lilies, it’s one of those plants that I carry constantly. They’re hard to get now,” Jones said, adding he’s felt the impact of the flower shortage most strongly the past couple springs.

“Anything metal, too: easels, wind chimes. I have silk flowers, anything coming from China, it’s an issue.”

The issue stems back to early 2020.

“It all goes back to COVID. It really set everything off,” said Diana Scalamogna, a family owner of BW Wholesale Florist on Smallman Street in Pittsburgh.

When the world locked down, the flower industry shut down along with it.

“All the farms pretty much had to halt production. They had to pretty much throw away their roots,” said Scalamogna. “So when the world started to open up again, all of a sudden there was this demand for flowers again. Events were back on. It was a huge supply and demand issue.”

Demand has been hard to meet. Weather in California, which grows about 76% of the United States’ fresh flowers, and Bogota, Colombia, further compounded the shortage. When farms in Ecuador and Bogota – the two major flower exporters to the U.S. – returned to work, owners found themselves short-handed.

A decrease in international flights meant less space on fewer planes for flowers and related product. When shipments did arrive in the states, there weren’t enough bodies to check flowers in.

And then, of course, there’s the truck driver shortage.

“Logistics is a big issue,” said Scalamogna. “It really all started from COVID … and then it trickled down. When flights weren’t available, when they did grow something, it was hard to get it into the U.S. When these flowers arrive in Miami, there’s a shortage of labor to accept these flowers. There’s a shortage of truck drivers. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Baxendell said there is one big change at The Perfect Arrangement as a result of the pandemic: “My prices have increased quite a bit,” she said. “They’re even adding on fuel costs to bring (shipments) here, so it’s been all the way around.”

Prices at Driscoll’s Potting Shed in Connellsville have also grown throughout the pandemic.

“Flowers that were a common flower, that may have been available a year or two ago, they’re like a specialty. There’s such a limited supply available. It’s driving the market prices through the roof,” said DeAnn Driscoll. “It’s been price increase after price increase after price increase. It’s hard to set that pricing off to the customer. It’s definitely a sticker shock.”

Driscoll’s Potting Shed opened in November 2019, just before COVID-19 hit. Driscoll said the industry her family works in today, three years into the pandemic, is not the same industry they started in.

“We’re just rolling and adapting as we go,” she said.

With more people vaccinated and eager to gather again in large groups, this year is expected to be one of the busiest for weddings in the U.S. Scalamogna said florists may have trouble making a bride’s floral fantasies bloom into a reality, and many brides may need to be flexible with their arrangements.

Driscoll’s is doing its best to accommodate brides. Driscoll said she educates her brides on flower choices and offers three options, based on flower availability.

“That’s been really hard, coming back from the shutdown for weddings,” said Driscoll. “I couldn’t provide pricing, I couldn’t provide availability. With wedding work, we’ll pre-book flowers. We like to pre-book the flowers six to eight weeks out. It’s been four to six weeks. If you book too soon, they can’t guarantee. That’s been rough.”

Rough, too, is that sometimes, shipments arrive with flowers that are not up to pre-pandemic standards. Driscoll said she returned a shipment ahead of Valentine’s Day because she couldn’t sell the flowers that arrived to customers.

“It’s been a nightmare,” she said, noting she offered full refunds to brides who postponed their big days due to the pandemic. Fortunately, she said, her wedding business is picking back up.

Jones, too, is in wedding mode.

“It definitely seems to be ramping up now,” he said. “We’re definitely booking up for spring weddings and fall weddings. It seems to be back to about normal.”

For the global floral industry, “normal” may be another year away, but, aside from specific flower colors, local florists and regional wholesalers are receiving their shipments. For them, it’s a delicate balance of being creative with arrangements and filling all the usual orders while preparing for Valentine’s Day.

“As long as you stay ahead of the game and order early, you’re good,” Jones said.

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