Product Description

We buy more flowers a year than we do Big Macs, spending $6.2 billion annually. We use them to mark our most important events, to express sentiments that might otherwise go unsaid. And we demand perfection. So it’s no surprise that there is a $40 billion global industry devoted to making flowers flawless.

Amy Stewart takes us inside the flower trade—from the hybridizers, who create new varieties in the laboratory, to the growers, who produce flowers by the millions (often in a factory-like setting), to the Dutch auctioneers, who set the bar (and the price), and ultimately to the neighborhood florists orchestrating the mind-boggling demands of Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. There’s the breeder intent on developing the first blue rose; an eccentric horticultural legend who created the world’s most popular lily; a grower of gerberas of every color imaginable; and the equivalent of a Tiffany diamond: the “ Forever Young” rose.

Stewart explores the relevance of flowers in our lives and in our history, and in the process she reveals all that has been gained—and lost—by tinkering with nature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #306015 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 306 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Stewart, an avid gardener and winner of the 2005 California Horticultural Society's Writer's Award for her book The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms, now tackles the global flower industry. Her investigations take her from an eccentric lily breeder to an Australian business with the alchemical mission of creating a blue rose. She visits a romantically anachronistic violet grower, the largest remaining California grower of cut flowers and a Dutch breeder employing high-tech methods to develop flowers in equatorial countries where wages are low. Stewart follows a rose from the remote Ecuadoran greenhouse where it's grown to the American retailer where it's finally sold, and visits a huge, stock –exchange–like Dutch flower auction. These present-day adventures are interspersed with fascinating histories of the various aspects of flower culture, propagation and commerce. Stewart's floral romanticism—she admits early on that she's "always had a generalized, smutty sort of lust for flowers"—survives the potentially disillusioning revelations of the flower biz, though her passion only falters a few times, as when she witnesses roses being dipped in fungicide in preparation for export. By the end, this book is as lush as the flowers it describes. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Reviewed by Adrian Higgins

In an ideal world, we would buy cut flowers for a sweetheart's birthday from Teresa Sabankaya. From her green kiosk in Santa Cruz, Calif., she sells blooms that she has raised lovingly on her flower farm. Her flowers, held in buckets that crowd her stall, are "all interesting, unusual, old-fashioned, ephemeral, perfumy," Amy Stewart writes in her eye-opening new Flower Confidential. In summer, Sabankaya's customers grab larkspur and poppies; in winter, heathers and berried plants.

But this isn't how most American consumers get their flowers. Instead, our blooms are more likely to have been raised in high-altitude flower factories in Ecuador or Colombia, dunked in chemicals, flown to Miami and distributed to wholesale markets around the country. A rose cut on a Monday morning in the shadow of a snow-capped volcano might find its way to a Manhattan florist the following Friday, and then be good for a week or more with a little care. In your local supermarket, you will find roses completely devoid of fragrance -- pretty in a stiff and uniform sort of way, but not the earthy roses of the garden or Sabankaya's stall.

Indeed, readers of Flower Confidential will be surprised and appalled to learn the extent to which something as fleeting and romantic as a rose or a lily has been turned into an industrial widget. You might accept today that a desk fan or a flashlight has been made somewhere other than in the United States, but a flower? An old Irish song speaks of the last rose of summer "left blooming alone." But today, there is no last rose of summer, nor a first rose of spring -- just roses spewing forth continuously from the jet-age conveyor belt of floriculture. Stewart believes these roses are enchanting as a single bouquet, a personal expression of caring. But force us to look at the machinery of this mass production, as she does so well, and the feeling is a little more queasy.

Consider some statistics gathered by Stewart:

We consume 10 million cut flowers per day in the United States.

On a per capita basis, we still spend considerably less in a year on flowers than Europeans do -- $25.90 compared to, say, more than $70 in Norway or $100 in Switzerland.

Twelve years ago, there were 100 carnation growers in the United States; now there are 24.

While America's rose production has declined by almost three quarters in the past 12 years, it has soared in places such as Colombia, Ecuador and Kenya.

We buy most of our flowers at the grocery store, but we spend the most money when we order from independent florists struggling to maintain their retail foothold.

All of this reminds us that not even a flower is simple. Delving into the broader world of horticulture leaves one astonished by the complexity of how, say, a petunia arrives at the garden center. This humble flower is backed by a global labyrinth of breeders, seed companies, growers, marketers, sales representatives and shippers. The machinations of floriculture are made even more poignant by the fact that the moment a flower is cut, it begins to die. So flowers are for the moment, which raises their value as a currency of human sentiment. Creating them is a far less poetic affair.

Flowers are not just picked from the wild; each lily or amaryllis is hybridized for particular, commercially viable traits by specialists who devote their lives to doing so. Flower Confidential shows us the original breeder of the ubiquitous Stargazer lily, an eccentric and sad figure who failed to cash in on the flower's success. But Stewart, who writes regularly for Organic Gardening magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle, also reports on the sophisticated efforts to raise tulips, gerberas and lilies by one of California's remaining cut-flower producers, Sun Valley Floral Farms. It is run by a grower named Lane DeVries, who left his native Netherlands to build the enterprise into America's largest producer of cut flowers. The Dutch influence in the industry is pervasive and legendary. Stewart shows us the daily flower auction at Aalsmeer, a vast concrete complex near Amsterdam that is the major global market for cut flowers and potted plants -- a rather cold and soulless place for so beautiful a commodity.

The Dutch auctions are still vital to floriculture, but the shift in actual growing -- especially in the western hemisphere -- is to the Andes, a region of optimum cultivation conditions and cheap labor. Stewart draws a picture of Ecuador's flower industry that is alternately disturbing and encouraging. Human rights groups worry about nursery workers who receive just $150 a month and endure difficult conditions, including exposure to chemicals banned in the United States. Stewart also cites problems with sexual harassment and child labor. But as with some foodstuffs, retailers and consumers can now choose "green label" flowers whose growers pledge to look after their workers and the environment.

Stewart's journey takes us down many such paths, all connected by her own curiosity and highly readable prose. The greatest value of Flower Confidential, however, is that it was written at all. We know so little of the ways simple daily items are brought to us that such a book helps us grasp our modern world. Who knows? Flower Confidential may compel us to return to something purer, more local. It may send us in search of our own version of Teresa Sabankaya's flower kiosk.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Amy Stewart's previous books, the award-winning The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms and From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden (see below), testify to the author's fascination with dirtying her hands. The well-researched and exuberantly written Flower Confidential reveals her passion and her eye for the interesting statistic (Americans buy some 10 million cut flowers a day). Stewart does an admirable job of making sense of a complicated business, even if a lack of illustrations might be limiting. Nevertheless (and above all), the book adeptly celebrates the incomparable beauty embodied in Stewart's subject—and "may compel us to return to something purer, more local" (Washington Post).
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Flower Power
Most of us have purchased flowers; either in random bunches at the grocery store, or in expensive bouquets for weddings or funerals. So, what makes a grocery store rose cost $1.00, but one from a florist cost 10 times that? How the heck do all those out-of-season roses end up blossoming beautifully for a mid-February holiday celebrated from Miami to Fairbanks? Why do we swoon over pictures of exotic arrangements in upscale magazines, but when we visit our local florist, we see the same old carnations and mums? The author follows the journey of the flowers that we love from cradle to grave, and what an interesting and varied journey it is. Just consider the topic of flowers; why is it customary to gift them? where did they grow? who developed and harvested them? how do some of them get from the steamy tropics to our dining room tables, and arrive with enough vase-life left in them to delight us for days? You'll find the answers to these questions, and more, in this delightful book. Ms. Stewart takes a common-sense approach to understanding the entire process. She views each stage of flower growing not with the jaded eye of a scientist, but with the wonder of someone who simply loves flowers. She thinks the kinds of thoughts you or I might think, and asks the same kinds of questions. Thankfully, this book does not veer into detailed botanical explanations, it speaks in a clear, even voice. One thing I did miss though, was photos. The author frequently speaks of taking photos on her journeys into the hidden world of flowers, and her descriptions made me ache to see them. The few diagrams are helpful, but they don't hold a candle to what Ms. Stewart saw. A fun, and easily digestible educational read.

Great service!
This book was delivered quickly and arrived in excellent condition. I highy recommend the vendor.

You'll Never Look At Flowers the Same Way Again
Did you ever read Anthony Bourdain's book "Kitchen Confidential" which is a sort of tell-all and autobiographical book of what goes on behind the swinging doors in restaurants. It's hilarious, sarcastic, etc. In its own way, Flower Confidential achieves the same greatness, just by its thoroughness in showing us what 'really' goes on. In a way, this is even more relevant, because we all have an idea of how a restaurant works, but no one thinks about how that bouquet came to be.

In addition to being able to spew off tons of facts about flowers to people (I can't tell if they're impressed or just think I'm crazy), this book has made me more conscious of the practices that go on and how to support ethical labor and fertilizating companies. I can't tell you how excited I was one day when I was in Sam's Club looking at their flowers, and yes, the Fair Trade sticker was there! I was happy to see it, and I was also glad that I knew what that sticker symbolized.

The book came out at an interesting time-right when Columbia and Ecuador (two major growers) were fighting each other. Every time I heard about the war, I always wondered what happened to the flower farms.

This book is honest, captivating, and is a great look at a very interesting industry. I'm amazed how much effort is put in to such a simple, cheap thing that we don'e even really think about. For me, whenever I get flowers, I'll ALWAYS be thinking about where they came from.