Researchers have found a new niche market for Georgia farmers:
selling ornamentals to florists.
For the past year and a half, Amy Carter has been attending
floral seminars and visiting Georgia wholesale florists and
trendy
Atlanta flower shops.
A research coordinator with the University of Georgia College
of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, she’s been assessing
the industry’s opinion on Georgia-grown ornamentals.
While conducting tours on the Coastal Plain Experiment Station
in Tifton, Ga., Carter and her colleagues, including lead
scientist
John Ruter, stumbled on the idea of selling winged elm branches
and other Georgia ornamentals
The Garden Club Ladies Love
It
“Every time the garden club ladies visit, they just ‘ooh’
and ‘ah’ over the winged elm trees and say how wonderful they
would look in floral arrangements,” Carter said. “After
hearing so many comments, well, we finally took the
hint.”
Carter was determined to find a way for Georgia farmers to
enter this type of speciality market. She works alongside UGA
researchers in Tifton who are constantly searching for new crops
and new markets for Georgia farmers.
“We focus on finding crops farmers can grow in their
off-seasons
and crops they can grow on unproductive land where they can’t
grow the more traditional row crops, such as cotton or peanuts
or corn,” Carter said.
To determine whether there is a market for winged elm, Carter
has been surveying Georgia florists shop by shop. The branches
compare to those of the curly willow tree, a nonnative plant
florists
use.
“I just walk into a flower shop and ask, ‘what do you
think of this?’” she said. “And all the florists I’ve
talk to have said they’d love to use it in arrangements and dish
gardens. Then they immediately ask where they can buy
some.”
Sold By The Bundle
After searching over hundreds of floral Web pages, Carter
determined
the winged elm branches could easily sell for $8 to $10 a 10-stem
bundle. Using these figures, an acre of 1,900 plants would gross
$11,000 in a year after just one year in the field, she said.
“I was also amazed to see that florists pay $6 for a
bunch
of millet heads,” she said. “And as far as I could
tell,
there are no Georgia suppliers for them or any other dried or
preserved floral product. I did find a wholesaler in Albany that
buys grapevine wreaths and cedar roping this time of year from
a Georgia grower.”
Carter said the selling price of the winged elm branches is
based on the length of the stem.
The next step of the project is for UGA researchers to develop
production methods and work with Georgia farmers to plant winged
elm on farm plots.
“You have to consider what the farmer is dealing with
in his other crops and how easily this would be adaptable,”
Carter said. “We want to introduce them to something new
and make it as painless as possible. I would really love to see
Georgia farmers as excited about this new crop as I am.”
Native Grass Turns Heads,
Too
Winged elm isn’t Carter’s only new crop project. She’s also
looking into marketing muhly grass, a native grass.
“It’s just gorgeous,” Carter said. “In October,
it has a pinkish purple flowering head that just catches the
sunlight.
In south Georgia, you notice it growing in low areas along the
roadsides.”
Like winged elm, muhly grass already has a fan club in
Tifton.
“We planted some here, and in the fall it’s everyone’s
favorite,” she said. And you guessed it. Carter bundled it
up and hit the florist’s trail.
“It’s definitely another one people just go crazy
over,”
she said. “They’re already asking, ‘What is that and where
can I get some?’”
