Holiday production begins well
before December. Magnolia, harvested year-round, sees its biggest demand for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Harvesting intensifies in October, when seasonal H-2A employees join Albin Hagstrom & Son’s workforce. After the holiday cut, the trees are trimmed back heavily so they can flush with new growth for the following year. Postharvest handling is designed
around cleanliness and temperature. Greens are loaded into large, grated containers, plunged into vats of water and agitated to remove dirt and insects. The product then spends a day or two in a cooler before packaging. Some foliage is vacuum sealed, a process that helps retain freshness during shipping. Cold-chain management is equally
central at FernTrust in Seville, Florida. Founded in 1986, the cooperative har- vests, packs and markets foliage for 13 family farms. President David Register’s family property has been in agriculture since the turn of the 20th century, first in citrus and cattle. After a devastating 1983 freeze destroyed hundreds of acres of orange groves, Register and two other growers joined forces to supply enough leatherleaf to fill weekly containers for the Dutch auctions. Today, approximately 98% of
FernTrust’s business remains in the United States and Canada, although the company also ships leatherleaf by air to Italy and serves markets as far away as Saudi Arabia and New Zealand. Its ColorFresh line uses water-based latex colorants, which can give mite-dam- aged fern a marketable decorative finish rather than allowing the product to go to waste. For florists building holiday work
one stem, wreath or foot of garland at a time, both operations offer a reminder: Dependable greens begin with years of cultivation, disciplined postharvest care and growers planning months — and sometimes generations — ahead.
Amanda Jedlinsky is the senior director of content and communications for the Society of American Florists and the editor in chief of Floral Management.
The magazine of the Society of American Florists (SAF) 31
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