Roses from Ecuador!
Roses must clear many hurdles before exported to your nearby florist.
My friends James and Terri posted some images of weddings and mentioned the amazing amount some people spend on flowers. One Jekyll Island wedding cost $100,000 – just on flowers! (See: There Goes The Bride 2) I commented and ‘wondered’ if those flowers came from Ecuador, which prompted the question, “Does Ecuador export a lot of flowers?”
While sipping coffee, eating patacones con queso and drinking a fresh fruit juice at the Hostal Charito in Mindo Ecuador, I did a search and discovered some interesting data.
Flowers! Flowers For Everyone Who Reads This Blog!
From this USA site regarding trade with Ecuador: The five largest import (Ecuador to USA) categories in 2011 were: Mineral Fuel (crude) ($7.5 billion), Fish and Seafood (shrimp and prawns) ($673 million), Edible Fruit and Nuts (bananas, plantains) ($511 million), cocoa ($247 million), and Live Trees and Plants (cut flowers-roses) ($149 million).
While waiting to travel from Quito to Mindo, I watched many deliveries of flowers come and go via various buses. The flowers were beautiful peering from their temporary cardboard shelters!
From www.ecuador.com: Flowers grown in Ecuador for exportation include: Astromelias, Carnations, Chrysanthemums, Daisies, Limonium, Gypsophila (“Baby’s Breath”), Liatris, Heliconias, Carnations, 60 varieties of roses, Gerbera daisies, Sunflowers, and Chrysanthemums. There are surely more, like the statelyc cobalt Agapanthus that anchors many gardens in higher elevations or the many-colored varieties of ginger.
Bursting displays of astromelia graced every table at the Dragonfly Inn in Mindo! June 26, 2013
A three-bus 7-hour journey delivered me back to Jama late last night. The thump-thump-thumping from a “San Pedro-San Pablo” fiesta planted a sense of dread that there would be no rooms at the inn! Nearby Ciragan Hostal was full, and I suspected that all rooms would be full for another weekend celebration of the yearly event. Luckily the local ‘super’ market was still open, so I purchased a few items for home and took a four-dollar mototaxi ride to the riverhouse.
The moon sets over the river; wonder what surprises the day will bring!
Ah, it was great to be home, and the thump-thump-thump of the music stretched its fingers five kilometers to remind me to be thankful to be home and not attempting slumber in town!
Frigates swoop and soar in lazy circles.
Luckily these flower images were uploaded in Mindo, as I am back on the river where the internet moves at a syrupy pace. Have a good week, everyone, and I’ll be posting and commenting at the whim of the internet connection!
Zeebra Designs & Destinations 
Gorgeous flowers! My best friend was in Ecuador very recently for a music festival (she’s a pianist.) She went last year and love it and this year spend a month between Brazil (for fun) and Ecuador (work and fun), mostly in Ecuador. I can’t wait to hear her stories and see her pictures!
janet
my time in the cloud forest was a great tonic to the senses; the flowers (and hummingbirds and butterflies) are lovely there.
how great that your friend’s work allows her to travel to unique places!
Your time sounds wonderful and refreshing.
it was, and now i’m listening to the whisper of the wind, the tweet tweet of a few birds, but basically it’s a very quiet day on the river! ahhhh!
I hadn’t realized until the whole Snowden thing blew up, that Ecuador exported flowers at all. I read somewhere–may have been on the ex-pat forum–that roses like the climate at our high elevations here in Ecuador–warm days, cool nights. Fascinating stuff.
Hugs,
Kathy
yes, you will enjoy learning by visiting different areas. my friends and i toured a rose farm near cayambe (on the way to otavalo)…
Nice post and photos Lisa, and interesting stats on flowers from Ecuador. Our local florist told us that most of our cut flowers come from S. America, but we didn’t know which countries. We still talk about how amazing it is that anyone would spend $120K on wedding flowers. And thanks very much for the link to our post. ~Terri and James @ Gallivance.net
Yes, that is serious money! ., and the flowers will have no impact on the bride and groom’s chances for happily ever after, amen!
z
I would love to see the statistical correlation between the amount of money spent on the wedding, and the survival rate of the marriage. ~James
ja ja! i agree – wonder if anyone has studied those statistics?
great information about export flowers in ecuador…. I arrived Jama this morning 4:30 and I also heard the thump thump from san Pedro y San Pablo party…….. I heard that today will be another party celebration… I wish I was in the river house enjoying that beautiful view
oh my, i hear the thump thump thump again! it’s been very quiet here on the river today. hope all is going well in town and those dancing folks dance up an appetite and keep you busy!
z
Reblogged this on The ObamaCrat.Com™ and commented:
Sunday soothing from Ms. Z.
Ahh to be home again on the river house away from the thump thump. sounds like Mindo was a joy to the senses. I’m aware of Ecuador’s flower growing exports to the US but I wonder if our local florists know where their flowers come from.
i think that the boses are labeled with the grower/home country. i hope that they are!
you and ron would like mindo!
OMG! I can’t imagine spending that much money on flowers for a wedding. Interesting trivia. I had no idea what Ecuador exports. Now, I’m going to have to do some research on Nicaragua exports. I think plantains and coffee will be at the top of the list. It’s nice to be home, isn’t it?
ja! most mornings i have a raucous wake-up call, either from the kingfishers that rattle from that balcony or from black birds and vultures that hop across the roof! i always thought that iguanas made a lot of noise on the roof, but these birds trump the iguanas.
yes, i will take that over the sound of traffic any day as a natural way to wean out of the dream state!
Funny, I just heard a radio news story the other day about a man who owns a large rose business in the highlands, and how worried he is that if Ecuador allows Snowden in, the US will put a squeeze on Ecuador that will affect his business, and all the workers he employs. I think he said the US already has a 6% tariff on cut flowers from Ecuador (or something like that) and there was hope that the tariff would be rescinded, but it was not, probably related to Snowden. Such complicated business it is, politics and international commerce in the 21st century. The rose grower also mentioned the superior quality of Ecuador’s roses, and the importance of them as exports, and how unfair it would be if the actions of one man (Snowden) caused his workers to lose their job. Much to ponder.
yes, there is much concern about the export market, and i think it is really unfair to leverage other people/lives in order to manipulate others.
Flowers, cloud forests, butterflies…oh, how much wouldn’t I like to go…
you would love it, amiga! the flowers and butterflies are truly like a fairy tale!
Your photos look remarkably like my nearest grocery store’s floral department! I think I know where most of our flowers come from. I’d already figured out that much of our fruit comes from Chile, but those packages are marked so consumers know. The flowers may be marked when they arrive (they surely are) but when they’re placed on display, there aren’t any identifiers.
LIke others, I was interested in the kerfluffle over Snowden, and the reports that economic sanctions might be imposed had Ecuador accepted him. That was my first hint that flowers and Ecuador were a “very big thing”. Now I understand why!
hey! the outing in the ‘selva’ was amazing! we picked coffee cherries, saw new species of birds, visited with a burro, picked grapefruit and lemons and a fruit i’ve never seen before.. i will be working on photos for hours!
yes, when i go into the large supermarket chains here in ecuador, i see the same assortment of flowers thatyou’re probably seeing in the states. we pay about the same too. most of the roses that are for sale here are the rejects, always amusing to me, though sometimes they fail to open.
i stayed up late last night working on the post, but you can bet i’m going to sleep with the chickens tonight!
what’s the hurricane predictions for this year.. average, i hope?
time’s clickin’….
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