Flower care

T Aalsmeer Auction’s notes he houseplants’ market for flowering plants, but even more for green plants, is normally improving during the month of January, but not this year. Supplied quantities were not very big, but even so, prices have been slightly lower. The same market situation continued during the month of February, with only a slight improvement during Valentine’s week and during the week before International Woman’s Day (8 March). This feast is mainly celebrated in Russia and the other East European countries. Most important used products are the cut flowers and in particular the roses, but also potted plants are more and more used. Of course, mainly flowering plants and in particular the red coloured types and varieties, such as anthuriums, kalanchoes, pot roses, gerberas, but even green plants, especially the medium sized ones. During week number eight prices were best and this lasted until the middle of week 9. After that, prices of many products considerably decreased. Positive exceptions could be made for: dracaenas, for both margenta and marginata, bicolour types, the palm types areca, kentia, livistonia, roebelinii, and beaucarnea. Still, taking into account the period of the year, prices are reasonably normal. Wether the market develop more positively during the weeks to come remains to be seen. It will, of course depend very much on the weather, which so far was winter like. Remarkable was the very early beginning of the Woman’s Day campaign. It is said that this day has become a mixture of Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day nowadays. The auctions’ selling and price results of February have been published already and they are very positive and satisfactory. The auctions’ total turnovers increased with 6.6%, but for houseplants the percentage was slightly higher. The positive results were not obtained with more volumes, but just with higher prices. The garden plants’ results have been slightly negative, mainly due to the very cold weather this year.