Richmond poinsettia grower last of a dying breed
Homegrown plants up against stiff competition from big box imports
"My accountant begs me not to grow them," jokes Peter Rofner, surrounded by rows of brilliant poinsettias at his Ottawa-area greenhouse.
Rofner and his staff of poinsettia experts are the last Ottawa-area growers of Euphorbia pulcherrima.
Though he struggles to turn a profit bringing what he calls "the most hated crop in Ontario" to bloom, the man behind Richmond Nursery has no plans to stop cultivating the vibrant shrubs.
This holiday season, a sprawling crop of 27 varietals — nearly 10,000 plants covering more than 20,000 square feet — is indeed blooming inside his Richmond-area greenhouse.
Winter Rose Red, Celebration, Holly Point, Tri-Color, Marble, Ice Punch, and Enduring Pink are just a few of the varieties flowering now.
'They're just fussy'
In addition to being highly susceptible to disease, the unique light-sensitivity of the plant adds another layer of complexity for the grower. Light, heat and CO2 levels must be carefully regulated in order for the poinsettias to bloom and look their most festive in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
"Then there's a lot of problems with bugs, especially in southern Ontario. They're just fussy," Rofner said.
But the biggest factor weeding out local poinsettia growers has been globalization and its effect on the price of the once-rare holiday flower, now on display at the cash registers of many big box outlets.
Big box plants stressed
Like many of the goods sold at those retailers, the poinsettias are produced thousands of kilometres away, where labour is cheap and temperatures are suitable for growing.
When you grow a plant and you love it, it's hard to let go.- Peter Rofner
What many consumers may not know is that during shipping, the plants poison themselves with ethylene gas and are already severely stressed by the time they're purchased. Because they don't have long to live, they're priced accordingly, and consumers grow used to the low cost.
"Just that nature of globalization, where it's cheaper to ship than to grow it in a cooler climate, has made it a short-lived, disposable plant, when it really shouldn't be that way," said Rofner.
Each July, Rofner's family starts with about 10,000 poinsettias cuttings from Mexico, Guatemala and Ethiopia. But after factoring in the cost of heating the operation, pruning the plants and dealing with the odd disease outbreak, there's not much profit left in an Ottawa poinsettia crop.
Stiff competition
When mature, the vast majority of the Richmond Nursery crop is sold at wholesale prices to community groups such as churches, hockey teams and schools. Rofner's retail price for a fully-grown plant is $42.99. Some local retailers are selling imported poinsettias for nearly half that price.
Despite the stiff competition, Rofner doesn't plan to abandon his poinsettia business any time soon.
For one thing, it's a family tradition: Rofner can remember when his parents began growing the holiday flower in heated hoop houses in the family's back yard in the 1970s. Now the business keeps six people employed in the lead-up to Christmas, when most other garden centres have shut their doors for winter.
