History
Flowers have delighted the eye from the beginning of time. People with natural talent for arranging flowers have been called upon to set the stage for many different occasions. It would be difficult to say when the very first business in floral arranging began. In the beginning were the ‘bucket florists’. They gathered flowers, set them in buckets in front of their local merchants stores and sold flowers by the bunch. Bucket florists who just designed “for fun” arranged bouquets out of buckets in their garages. In some of the fairer weather cities across the nation, you will find posh flower shops with flowers in bunches for sale on the street in front of their stores. In the early 1900’s the Chinese, Italians and Japanese sold flowers in open-air markets. That ceased after the earthquake in l906. They maintained close ties and in l924 they united under one roof. From that union came the organization now known as the San Francisco Flower Mart. The organization grew from three to sixty vendors.
In the l960’s a man named William Zappettini began shipping flowers for approximately 30 growers in California. By the year 2006, the California Cut Flower Commission supported 300 growers. They now produce more than 70% of all domestically grown, commercially sold cut flowers in the United States. In 2007 it is estimated that 200,000 blooms will be shipped for Valentines Day alone. And for the year of 2007 an estimated 20 million will be shipped. The floral market today is a $20 billion market.
In 1894 the Society of American Florists was formed. A group of 21 Nurserymen, Seedsmen and Florists joined forced in Chicago. Their first primary focus was to offer hail insurance at a whopping $2 a year! Now they represent over 12,000 growers alone. As the popularity of having flowers on a daily basis grew, people opened up small flower shops “mom and pop’ shops to supply the demand. In order to become better organized and connected, an auxiliary group formed Florists Telegraph Delivery better known today as FTD. In 1914 the national holiday of Mothers Day was created to help stimulate business for all those connected to the floral industry. It is interesting to note that florists fared better than most during the l930’s depression. One of the given facts is there are always weddings and funerals. Flowers sold for dimes and pennies but people still spent their hard earned money to bring a little bit of sunshine or comfort to their lives. It was during this time that another floral wire service company formed known as Teleflora.
