Cut Foliage Industry Takes Hit

Ellen C. Wells

I wrote extensively in my Tropical Topics e-newsletter about the impact Hurricane Matthew has had on the fern/cut foliage industry about 100 miles north of Rockledge Gardens. Upwards of 90% of all cut foliage comes from growers in Valusia, Putnam and Lake counties in Florida. We’re talking any sort of cut foliage you’d see used in the floral industry—ferns but also leather leaf, pittosporum, tree fern and on and on.

I spoke with Jana Register, director of sales and marketing at Fern Trust, a cooperative of cut foliage growers in Seville, Florida. She wants everyone—from the horticulture industry on down to florists, brides and Jane Consumer—to expect shortages, price increases, quality changes and even product replacements, and most importantly, to understand why these are occurring. They are counting recovery time in months, not weeks.

“The low estimates put devastation at 50% industry wide,” Jana told me. “One of the growers today said we have as yet to unveil the future crop damage that is waiting to unfurl in the fields.” For example, fern fiddleheads are very delicate. Not only did they experience high winds and rain, but with the shade cloth that has blown off, they’re now exposed to high levels of sun, which will bleach or scorch them. “Not only did we lose the crop that was there and ready to harvest, but we also lost that immature fern that was waiting to come online for our Valentine’s Day crop.”

Many of their products—like pittosporums and tree ferns—are grown under natural oak “hammocks” or canopies, and those trees were ripped up out of the ground, as many as 40 to 50 trees in a 10-acre plot. “The devastation is immense,” Jana said.

Crews started recovery efforts as soon as it was safe to do so. But there’s a shortage in the shade cloth they use due to low demand. “The earliest we project getting materials to cover these damaged structures is 6 to 8 weeks, with some projections being 6 to 8 months before enough material is available for all the damage to be repaired,” Jana reports. GP