Popularity of Orchids Soars in the U.S.

Susan Salisbury
Cox News Service

August 17, 2001

Nancy Priess wants to convert orchid fanciers into orchid obsessives.

"There are as many ways to grow orchids as there are spaghetti recipes," she tells the 150 or so pupils who attend her orchid classes at Laurel Orchids west of Jupiter, Florida, each year. "We want to share with you the way we do things."

If the statistics are any indication, Priess and others like her are making converts. The orchid holds the nation's No. 2 position in flowering plant sales, after the poinsettia.

"The orchid business has changed in the last few years," said Priess, 64. "It used to be just the hobbyists. Now we have 'coffee table ladies' who use orchids for decorating.

"My job is to take them from being coffee table ladies to being truly dedicated orchid nuts."

Orchids leapt to U.S. $100 million in wholesale sales nationwide last year, from $79 million in 1999, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Florida ranked as the top orchid-growing state, with wholesale sales of $37.1 million to California's $35.9 million.

The average wholesale price for an orchid in Florida rose to $10 from $6.50 in 1999, said Shirley Zonner, statistician at the Florida Agricultural Statistics Service in Orlando. Higher wholesale prices accounted for Florida's sales increasing by $7 million in 2000.

Many of the state's small orchid nurseries aren't included in the statistics, which include only the 43 businesses in Florida reporting $100,000 or more in annual sales. Statewide, 100 to 125 wholesale and retail orchid growers operate, says Andy Easton, education and orchid operations director with the American Orchid Society west of Delray Beach.

"Our weather is perfect. The lighting is good. The temperature is ideal. The land is relatively inexpensive here, compared to Hawaii and California," Easton said.

Wide Array of Colors, Forms

The 50 or so retail and wholesale orchid growers from the Keys to the Treasure Coast make it one of the state's top orchid regions, although no sales figures are available.

More than 300,000 hybrid orchids provide an almost unlimited range of colors and forms, from the classic "corsage" orchid (cattleya) to the oncidiums with their dainty yellow-and-brown or white-and-brown "dancing lady" flowers.

The popular phalaenopsis offers a choice of white, pink, yellow, orange, peppermint-striped and two-toned varieties, said Robert Black, a University of Florida horticulture expert. Other major species are vanda, known for producing a dozen or more flowers in the warm months, and epidendrum, excellent outdoor garden plants with a profusion of one-inch (2.5-centimeter) flowers.

The orchid flower's delicate look might scare people, but it's really not so fragile, growers say. After all, the more than 20,000 varieties found in the wild are not being tended to by anyone. In addition to variety, growers are attracted by the hardiness of the flowers' blooms, which can last six weeks or more.

Orchids respond best to "benign neglect," said Laurel Priess, Nancy's daughter, for whom the family business in named. "You water and fertilize them, but they like to dry out between waterings."

Nancy Priess, a former commercial artist, said she, husband Frank and Laurel drifted into the business because of their love of orchids.

"This is a hobby gone wild," said Priess, who estimates she has about 97,000 plants in hundreds of varieties in the greenhouse on ten acres (four hectares). "I started growing orchids 34 years ago. My original idea was to have 12 plants, one that would bloom each month. I was going to control things."

The family moved to Miami and started a full-fledged orchid business there. They returned to Palm Beach County 14 years ago and transplanted the business on land they already owned west of Jupiter. They sell orchids for $15 and up, specializing "in whatever strikes our fancy," Priess said.

"This is not a business you make a profit at quickly," she said.

Growing Passion

The average orchid plant takes seven years to mature to a flowering plant from a seed.

Despite that, newcomers still are entering the orchid industry.

Kenni Judd, 42, and Mike Baum, 45, left their respective careers as a corporate lawyer and woodworker to start Juno Beach Orchids. After being backyard growers in Juno Beach, they went into business full time in 1998 on property west of Palm Beach Gardens.

Baum and a friend built the 8,800-square-foot (800-square-meter) shade house where the couple now tends to 5,000 containers.

"Kenni was working 55 or 60 hours a week. I came home exhausted. We never saw each other," Baum recalled.

"I haven't regretted it yet," he said. "There's always something to keep you going."

Now, a slow week is 60 hours, and the duties are shared.

They have built the business through orchid shows, a winter season kiosk at Oakbrook Square in Palm Beach Gardens and through the company's Web site.

"People are finally getting over the myth that orchids are hard to grow," Judd said. "They are starting to learn it's not all that hard."

Two wholesale growers at Turtle Pond Orchids west of Delray Beach also entered the business from other fields.

Terry Chemtov, 35, was employed as a certified public accountant when father-in-law Michael Borkon asked him to help expand Borkon's 25-acre (10-hectare) foliage plant nursery into orchids. Borkon's stepson, Scott Glazer, 27, who worked in marketing for the Miami Heat, also joined him.

Borkon, 58 and semi-retired, had grown orchids as a hobby, but was a little intimidated at the thought of cultivating them commercially. Three years ago, the family hired a top-notch consultant to teach them how.

Turtle Pond specializes in phalaenopsis orchids, which produce long arching sprays resembling moths in flight. They also grow vandas, dendrobiums and oncidiums. Chemtov and Glazer learned quickly, and building on their contacts in the plant industry, they sell more than 100,000 plants a year.

"I'm thrilled to death," Borkon said, adding that, like most orchid fanciers, he was too afraid to get involved in their propagation at first. Now he said he knows better.

"Orchids have connotations of being rare and difficult to grow. It's just different and needs a little bit of study," he said.

Copyright 2001 Cox News Service