Suddenly, a Flower for the Masses
Sales of Affordable Orchids Are Growing Like Weeds
By Margaret Webb Pressler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 20, 2004; Page F06


I've had mixed feelings about orchids. They are beautiful, exotic flowers
that I can't help but admire. But I've always felt intimidated by them, and
full of guilt when the petals of these expensive beauties eventually fall
off and I do nothing to help them come back.

Then I see a little flat of potted yellow orchids by the cash register at
Safeway for $9.99 each. Or for $6.49 at Home Depot or Costco or Wal-Mart.
How did such "expensive" and "hard-to-handle" plants become a mass-market
staple?

In fact, the orchid world (and it is its own world) has been quite roiled by
the growing, marketing and distribution changes that have put these elegant
plants in your local superstore. To be sure, these aren't the rare
collectors'-item orchids that followers will search through jungles to find.
But the mass market is increasingly offering beautiful and high-quality
specimens at prices almost anyone can afford.

Not all traditional orchid connoisseurs are happy about the widespread
distribution, but consumers apparently love it.

"Orchids are going through a transformation from specialty crop to common
decor," said Marvin Miller, market research manager for Ball Horticultural
Group of Chicago.

If you'll pardon the pun, the orchid is the fastest-growing potted plant in
the country. Between 2000 and 2003, sales of potted orchids grew 36 percent,
while the competition was down or flat: Florist azaleas fell 33 percent,
mums were off 7 percent and poinsettias grew just 4 percent, according to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In terms of dollar volume, with sales of $121 million last year, orchids are
now the second-highest-selling potted flowers, right behind the
holiday-favorite poinsettias, which still outsell orchids by 2 to 1. The
next-closest competitors are chrysanthemums, at $76 million. This increase
in sales has been accompanied by falling prices -- the average wholesale
price for a pot of orchids was down 8 percent in 2003, to $7.75.

Many of the orchids sold at wholesale last year -- 15.6 million -- were
shipped to the mass market for resale. An appreciative audience is gradually
understanding that orchids don't have to inspire anxiety. In fact, the
varieties for sale in the supermarket are remarkably easy to care for,
needing only occasional watering and typical indoor temperature and light
conditions. Green thumbs? Not required.

"There's a really good value in orchids -- the flowers last a really long
time," said Kerry Herndon, owner of Kerry's Bromeliad Nursery, a massive
orchid wholesaler in Florida. "If you put a Phalaenopsis in your house and
it lasts two to three months, and it was $20, compared to mums that were $10
and lasted two to three weeks, what's the better deal for you?"

And at that price, if consumers don't want to bother with trying to
encourage more blooms, they don't have to. In fact, KB's orchid tags give
reblooming instructions on one side (prune back to just below the lowest
bloom), while the other side suggests throwing the whole thing away when the
flowers are gone and buying another.



"It's okay -- we'll grow more," Herndon said. "We want to take the guilt
away."







For some aficionados, this is heresy. In the old world of orchid
cultivation, part of the thrill of these magnificent flowers is carefully
tending them so they'll rebloom. Not in Herndon's world. For most people, he
said, it's just not worth the time and effort.

"I've had some negative reactions to that, people saying, 'That's like
saying when kittens become cats, throw them away because we'll grow more,' "
he said. "Honestly, it's a potted plant. It's broccoli. It's not a sensate
creature. You should enjoy their special beauty and enjoy new fresh ones."

Of course, the more Herndon can encourage this approach, the better it is
for business. And orchids are a great business. Though expensive to grow,
Herndon has created a mechanized system for watering and tending the flowers
at his nursery, where he has more than 5 million plants on site at any one
time. Because orchids command relatively high wholesale prices -- Herndon
sells them for between $3.50 and $35 apiece -- they're also more profitable
flowers than, say, African violets.

And while competition is increasing, especially among importers, it's been
hard for some domestic growers to jump onto the orchid wave because the
plants require a year-long growing cycle. Many nurseries rely on several
crops -- bedding plants in the spring and fall and poinsettias in the
summer -- so there's no room or time for orchids.

Orchids are great for retailers, too, because the flowers still have enough
cachet that they can be marked up significantly. Herndon says he has seen
the same plant from his nursery get marked up 12 percent at one retailer and
200 percent or more at another. Because the plants won't die over the
weekend if they aren't watered, they're also less risky for a store to
carry. And they offer shoppers a product that is still considered special.

"Orchids are hot," said Greg Ten Eyck, a spokesman for Safeway stores. "The
floral department is a fashion department, and orchids are really a fashion
statement."

Orchid experts say some connoisseurs think the prevalence of the plants
devalues a magical flower. Orchids have been around since before the
dinosaurs, and there are some 25,000 species.

But more enlightened orchid lovers understand that wider distribution means
some people will get passionate about the plants and graduate to the more
exotic and expensive species, thereby strengthening the orchid culture.
After all, cheap chardonnay has done nothing to hurt oenophiles.

Rob Griesbach, president of the American Orchid Society and a research
geneticist at the USDA for herbaceous ornamental plants, is a perfect
example of the enlightened connoisseur.

"One of the highest-quality orchids in my collection I bought at a mass
market, on sale for $6.95," Griesbach said. "It has a unique color, the
shape was right, it had all these award-winning qualities."

Griesbach, who has about 5,000 orchids in a greenhouse at home, is the type
of enthusiast who has traipsed through jungles looking for unusual species.
He'll use his lovely $6.95 orchid for breeding.

"That's why a lot of the orchid connoisseurs are really happy with the mass
market -- we can find good stuff," he said.

And now, so can the rest of us.

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