Hey Pretty Charmelia Flower,...

Hey Charmelia flower, are you open enough?  This is always a good opening question for some discussion. Flowers and their cutting stage. My experience with it, is that it sometimes causes major discussions! Growers, traders, and florists are often having different opinions about it. And in every country the perception of the right cutting stage for Charmelia is also different. That makes the discussion even harder! But, discussions are good, you learn from every discussion and especially in this hot topic. As a breeder, we can learn a lot from florists and the other way around!

Cutting stage

In every group of products, the cutting stage is an issue. I work much with Alstroemeria and Charmelia and the problem that we often hear is that the alstroemeria is too raw for the trading. But, when they are too open, the florists may think that the flowers are too What can we do about it? Sometimes the solution is very simple: Show it to the people. Put a Charmelia stem that is open on the vase. Take another vase with a closed alstroemeria and let the florist decide which one is better. My experience is, that the cutting stage does not involve the vase life. At the same time, the presentation in a Cash & Carry with more open flowers will cause a clear image of the flower.  

Charmelia

In the Charmelia group, we tried to do it differently. The first flower in this group was the Charmelia Pink, at the beginning also known as 'Bridesmaid'. The Charmelia is a kind of spray alstroemeria, and we decided together with grower Together2Grow to make a standard of riper flowers. In the clip, you will see how the flower reacts to that.  

Finally!

The comments of florists were great: Finally a bit more color on the branch! The traders need a bit of proving but now everybody accepts that the Charmelia is a bit open. So, the perception of open flowers and raw flowers can be changed!

Really important: transportation

Then we have the transport issue. That is a tricky one in my eyes. If a grower offers more open flowers, the trader and the grower should know how the transport is going. Are flowers packed in a box, then open flowers should be tested if they will survive. If not, then the cutting stage is an issue to discuss within the whole flower chain.