Lily Talks Lilies (Part 2)

O my garden! lying whitely in the moonlight and the dew,

Far across the leagues of distance flies my heart to-night to you,

And I see your stately lilies in the tender radiance gleam

With a dim, mysterious splendor, like the angels of a dream!

                                                                            Julia C.R. Dorr

Pink Oriental Fields Collection from our Bouquet Department

Welcome back to Part Two of our “Lily Talk Lilies” post. When you enter the Dutch glass greenhouses you notice how tall they are, certain varieties of our lilies grow upwards of five feet, but the height of the greenhouse seems like overkill.  What’s the deal? The reason the greenhouses are so tall is to have plenty of air in the lilies atmosphere.  More air equals a more stable environment, meaning less temperature swings and more consistent humidity levels.  Oriental lilies like stability, they are creatures of habit.  They like 16 hours of light every day and they like the temperature to stay at a constant 60 degrees Fahrenheit. This is in sharp contrast our LA Hybrid lilies that we grow out in hoop houses; they like hot days and cool nights.

Lilies just before harvest.

A big factor that differentiates our lilies from all others is the abundant availability of crystal clear water.  As much of the nation simmers under drought conditions, Humboldt County is blessed with plenty of water…this is a nice way of saying that it rains a lot here.  Our farm has several wells on it from which we draw the water for our crops.  In tests we have found that the electro-conductivity of the water on our farm is very low compared to other flower growing regions of the world.  I know, what’s electro-conductivity?  It is the amount of salt in the water, salt conducts electricity and according to our head lily grower, Tim Crockenberg, lilies and most other plant don’t like salt and history shows this is true.

So our lilies grow tall and the blooms reach epic size, then our great picking teams harvest them at just the right time.  They are bunched by variety, then put in buckets, here they have a special post-harvest drink.  I asked what it was, and suddenly the usually very chatty growers clammed right up.  We do have proprietary information of the farm, so this will remain a secret to our success.

Lane inspecting a current crop of Orientals.

One aspect of Sun Valley’s growing operation which I think often gets taken for granted is our experience.  The methodical nature of Lane is instilled in our team of growers.  Lane carries a little note book with him wherever he goes, and if you pay attention on a farm walk you will see him jotting down extremely specific notes about the crops.  All these notes, based on specific batches, blocks of plantings, weather conditions and a host of other factors are cataloged and organized on spreadsheets.   This scientific data base has been building since the early 80’s.  This knowledge base shows in every stem we pick.

Our Lilies reach for the sky!

The post-harvest teams grade and sleeve the lilies, then they are "cart mapped" and sent to the coolers, where they await transport to their final destination.  Each cart holds a set of buckets, and the contents of the buckets are all accounted for on the cart map.  The Cart Map has information such as the flower variety, the grade, in some cases the specific customer, when they were picked and how many stems are on the cart.  The Cart Maps all have bar codes on them, so every cart can be scanned and tracked.  The organizational effort behind an operation like Sun Valley is pretty vast, the Cart Map system is one of the most reliable and dependable systems we have in place to make sure you get the right batch of lilies.

A Cart Map.

At the end of the day, an inventory crew goes through all the coolers and makes sure that the physical inventory matches the inventory our sales reps see on their computer screens.  When you call and request ten boxes of pink Orientals, and our sales rep says, “Today I have 9, I will have more tomorrow.”  These figures are amazingly accurate. 

A Broadway, Sumatra and Bear Grass combo...#CAGrown.

Obviously, we are proud of the lilies we grow at SunValley.  The vibrant colors, the great vase life and the consistent supply we offer point to a bigger issue.  We believe in high quality flowers, there is nothing worse than a consumer taking home a bunch of lilies which doesn’t perform at its best.  Many farms have similar rigorous procedures in place to insure the optimum quality; we applaud these efforts from our fellow growers.  High quality flowers that “Delight and Amaze” customers are the key to return sales and increasing flower consumption.  There is no short cut.

Lily shadows on canvas