Why Growers Avoid Poinsettias

Big Box Poinsettia

In addition to surveying growers who produced poinsettias this past season, Greenhouse Grower connected with a handful of growers who at one time produced poinsettias yet no longer do. We asked growers why they stopped producing them. We received a variety of responses, but a number of growers cite competition or the availability abundance as key reasons why they don’t produce their own or deal with the crop at all.

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“We can buy them for less money from Canadian growers, plus they deliver on a weekly basis,” says Jerry Rosso, owner of Washington state’s Rosso Gardens.

Adds Mark Ruibal, a grower-retailer at Ruibal Plants of Texas: “Availabilities from other experienced growers close to us make it easier to buy them in. We never grew them and have heard horror stories.”

Grower-retailers like Ruibal probably won’t take on poinsettia production anytime soon, either. When we asked the non-poinsettia producers if they would consider growing poinsettias in 2012, 88 percent said no.

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Some of these growers are, however, producing other winter holiday crops, some of which include Christmas cactus, cineraria, cyclamen, primrose and rosemary.

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