To the untrained eye, the
graceful lilies that arrive on church altars each year on Easter Sunday are a
familiar symbol of resurrection and renewal. Like poinsettias on Christmas, it
just wouldn’t be Easter without them.
But for the people who get
them there — on a date that shifts from year to year — getting the
trumpet-shaped flowers to bloom on cue takes months of just-right gardening,
mathematical deduction and extreme diligence.
“It is by far the most
complicated, single thing that happens in the floricultural industry,” said
William B. Miller, professor of horticulture at Cornell University.
“Valentine’s Day — same day
every year. Christmas Day — same day every year. No problem. … It’s extremely
complicated and Easter lily growers really do have to keep very close track of
this stuff. They have to very much manage their crop.”
Researchers like Miller have
drawn up schedules for greenhouses with how-to instructions specific to the
date Easter arrives in a given year, chronicling the steps once lily bulbs
arrive in mid-October from bulb growers on the West Coast.
Week by week, the guidelines
suggest the exact period for cooling the bulbs (six weeks), best greenhouse
temperatures (somewhere in the
60s) and how long the buds
should be at various points in the growing process.
Temperature is the secret to
getting an Easter lily to bloom on time, said Norman White, owner of White’s
Nursery and Greenhouses in Chesapeake, Va., who has grown lilies for about 40
years.
“You have to look at the plant, decide where it is in the
stage of its growth and when Easter is and you make the decision,” he said.
“Should you give it more
heat or less heat, depending on the time Easter is?”
Even as the lilies go
through the early cooling stage, known as “vernalization,” conditions have to
be just right, said Ray Greenstreet, co-owner of Greenstreet Growers in
Lothian, Md.
The lily bulb, packed in
peat moss, “has to stay moist,” he said.
“It can’t be too wet or too
dry.”
RNS photo courtesy White’s Nursery and Greenhouses Easter lily bulbs arrive at White’s Nursery and Greenhouses in Chesapeake, Va., in October and are tended for several months to bloom in time for Easter. |
His staff does intricate
leaf counts to determine how many leaves need to unfold each day before the
plant flowers. “You can’t be a couple days late or a couple of days early,” he
said. “You really have to follow the recipe.”
Jeff den Breejen, vice
president of Ednie Flower Bulbs in Fredon, N.J., has spent part of March
traveling up and down the East Coast, visiting greenhouses and inspecting the
still-growing lilies that will soon be shipped to stores.
“If they weren’t up to a certain amount of inches by that
time, we told them to turn the heat up,” he said. “If they don’t make it for
Easter, it’s not worth anything the week after Easter.”
If the flowers arrive late,
he could lose customers who wouldn’t want to order them the next time around.
Growers say Easter’s
rotating spot on the calendar affects what other crops they plant in a
particular year. While this year Easter is early (April 4), some are already
dreading next year when it falls much later, on April 24.
“Everybody is already
thinking about what in the devil are we going to do with Easter so late?” said
Russell Weiss, owner of Kurt Weiss Greenhouses in Center Moriches, N.Y. “A lot
of growers next year will not grow Easter plants because it’ll interfere with
their spring season.”
In fact, growers say sales
of the estimated 9 to 10 million Easter lilies shipped across North America
each year are either static or diminishing, with some churches no longer
decorating with lilies, and younger generations less interested in buying them.
The biggest numerical drop
in the industry is where it all begins — at the bulb stage.
“When I first came in the
business in the mid- to late’70s, there were 26 lily bulbs growers,” said Rob
Miller, owner of Dahlstrom and Watt Bulb Farms of Smith River, Calif., and
brother of the Cornell University researcher.
Now, Miller says, he’s one
of four.
At one time, shortly after
World War II when lilies were no longer imported from Japan, hundreds of bulb
growers tilled the soil from Half Moon Bay, Calif., to Bellingham, Wash., where
conditions are perfect for growing the flowers.
Now, according to
distributors and growers, large retail chains sell lilies at lower prices and
with very strict specifications, which creates greater challenges for those on
the growing end of the industry.
“The consistency of the
product and the profitability of handling and growing has gotten extremely
tight,” Rob Miller said. “And that’s what’s contributed to the continual
decrease to the number of bulb growers.”
When Miller’s brother, the
Cornell horticulturalist, arrives at the First Congregational Church of Ithaca,
he suspects he’s the only person in the pews who appreciates everything that
went into getting the flowers to the church on time.
“They have no idea,” William Miller said of fellow
worshippers. “No clue.”