Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, a wedding, or just because.

Americans buy flowers throughout the year, in big quantities.

If you walk into a grocery store, you're likely to find the best sellers, wrapped in plastic and sold in bundles and bouquets, roses, tulips,

lilies. But there's another flower that's been in high demand, a particularly showy one with

large frilly petals. Everyone loves peonies. That's Bob Milano. He's a flower wholesaler. He used to only be able to get peonies in the springtime

for, you know, two, three, four weeks, and that was about it. And someone's calling in August and saying,

I want peonies for my wedding or I want peonies for my client. That's Jasmine Gomez-Gonzalez,

another flower wholesaler.

And some things just aren't grown normally in August.

If it was Amazon, I'm sure I can order it and have it ready, but we're working with the weather here, right?

But when there's demand, supply finds a way.

Advances in refrigeration and logistics have turned the cut flour industry from a direct farm to consumer business into an international web of farms, shipping companies, wholesalers, distributors, and retailers.

You can get your peonies year-round now for the most part, and it's by bouncing around the

entire world. Right now, we're getting them in Chile.

When the Chile season ends, we're going to get them in Israel.

When Israel season ends, we'll get them domestically in Arkansas and in North Carolina.

When it ends there, we come into Oregon, Washington.

After Oregon, Washington, we go up to Alaska.

At the same time, we'll also hit the Midwest.

So we go all over the place, but then the prices will fluctuate based upon where they're being produced.

In 2024, Americans bought over $7 billion worth of cut flowers.

Most of those were imported from international farms. We buy more cut flowers

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