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What’s Happening at WFS

As Mother’s Day is quickly approaching, we wanted to be sure to provide a detailed update on production, availability, and pricing! As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to your sales rep with any questions.

Miami & South America

Recent weather conditions in South America have been warmer and wetter than expected due to a strong El Nino phenomenon. As a result, growers are concerned that Mother’s Day crops will be ready for harvest ahead of schedule. For this reason, wholesalers and retailers should be cautious in their choice of farms to ensure that product has not been cooler stored for extended periods of time at the grower level before shipping. This is going to be a holiday where ensuring quality will come as result of working with quality farms and where a good and honest working relationship between wholesalers and farms will be essential.

Additionally, a number of the Ecuador summer flower farms have encountered difficulties with the importation of seeds for the Mother’s Day and Spring seasons. This will result in a shortage on a number of summer flowers- delphinium, asters, stock, Limonium and veronica are likely to be the biggest issues. Our advice is to order early on those items as quantities will become very limited as we get closer to holiday shipping.

Florida Greens – production overall looks good, one exception may be pittosporum. The crop is currently in a production gap and may not return to full production until after the holiday season.

Pricing and Availability: We’re expecting prices on high quality product to stay strong leading up to the holiday with availability being tight from quality farms. We do expect to see excess and early product coming available at good prices as we get closer to the holiday, but are going to be very cautious of the quality of any discounted products.

California

Weather in California has improved recently and farms are hitting their spring production cycle, so quality and availability is looking good. There has been a bit of cooler weather in recent weeks, which may delay the start of some seasonal items, but which will also help to extend the season on some of the more sensitive and softer flowers. There are a number of items which we expect to see limited availability on as demand peaks and supply from vendors remains low. Crops we are expecting demand to outpace production at the holiday peak are snapdragons, larkspur, lilies, gladiolas. All have a limited number of producers, and we would recommend ordering early to ensure availability on those items. Straight color calls on those items will likely be difficult to accommodate and grower assortment breakdowns are still unknown but likely heavy to purple and white.

There are a few upcoming crop changes of note fast approaching:

• Seeded Eucalyptus – we’re entering the season where the seeded eucalyptus will become cupped. Plenty of availability, but customers should be aware that the seeds they know and love are going to be on hiatus until well after the holiday.

• Waxflower – approaching the end of its season shortly after the Mother’s Day holiday. Current farm projections expect the crop to make a satisfactory showing for the holiday, but quality will diminish as we get to the holiday and we are being very selective about our farms to ensure the best quality for the holiday.

• Heather Boronia – the season is slowly starting! The brown/burgundy season has officially started and first production on pink is just beginning to be harvested. Unfortunately, this is looking like it is going to be a short crop this year and will be unlikely to continue production into the Mother’s Day holiday.

• Peonies – this is always a waiting game coming up to the holiday and will depend on weather over the next few weeks. We are cautiously optimistic that we will see some of the early crops in time for the holiday.

Plant/Nursery Stock

Plant and nursery stock production continues to be a bit tumultuous, though growers have increased their production on items that have been tight on production over the past year. Greens, tropicals and novelty items are in good production levels, but blooming variety availability will continue to be tight. Straight color calls on blooming varieties will be extremely limited for the holiday with most growers opting to offer only a grower assortment of colors.

products. Plant/nursery stock looks good, but expect low availability on straight color call orders for blooming products. For blooming products, grower assortments of colors will be the standard for the holiday.

Pricing looks comparable to 2023 on pre-books, but a spike in pricing close to the holiday is expected if farm production continues to trend ahead of schedule and causes a shortage of top quality product.

Upcoming Pre-B00k Deadlines

Don’t miss out on Mother’s Day Pre-book Deadlines! Register below as a customer on our website for more info, or stop by your local WFS warehouse and speak to a sales rep.

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