‘Petal Pushers’ : Flower Grower, Float Designer Mobilize as Rose Parade Draws Near
Claire Johnson has battled airline strikes, stampeding cattle, hungry bugs and ferocious hurricanes to grow the tropical blooms that grace many of the Tournament of Roses Parade floats. Once, while cutting down red ginger stalks, she almost bled to death after slicing off her finger with a scythe.
On a recent afternoon Johnson was relaxing for a few minutes in her backyard, a spectacular site on the windward side of Oahu. It was the calm before the storm, for in the next few days she would be harvesting 5,000 heliconia, 50,000 orchids and 100,000 anthuriums and assorted ti leaves, bamboo and other greenery for the Mainland parade.
About 2,500 miles away in Temple City, Jim Hynd, Fiesta Floats floral director, has had his own tribulations. One year 14 tons of canvas fell down on his floats only weeks before the parade; another time, the flower truck crashed, dumping its precious cargo of tulips all over the highway.
This year the problem has been the stegosaurus. For weeks the floral decorator had been beating the bushes for chartreuse-colored lumpy hedge apples to make scales for the dinosaur. After calling associates nationwide to no avail, he was lamenting about it to a friend in Missouri, who exclaimed that he had a tree full in his backyard. Since then several other florist friends have also come through. “Now,” Hynd said, “I’m going to have hedge apples coming out my ears.”
Johnson and Hynd are only two of the thousands of “petal pushers” who in the next 10 days will be trimming, watering, pasting and worrying over the astounding 20 million flowers used for the extravaganza.
The theme for the 1987 Rose Bowl parade is “World of Wonders.” Considering the monumental task of growing the greenery and wielding it into works of art, the biggest wonder of all may be how the flower growers and designers do it. The beautiful illusions they create with anthuriums, orchids, heliconia and, yes, roses belie the sweaty, nail-biting work involved.
In years past, 90% of the flowers have come from Southern California. But, increasingly, floral materials are being imported as designers search for more exotic and less expensive materials to adorn their creations.
This year’s floats will be graced with kangaroo paw and other wild flowers from Australia; orchids from Singapore; gerbera daisies, tulips and lilies from Holland; liatris from Israel; ranunculus from Africa; iris from France; anthuriums from Puerto Rico; dendrobium orchids from Thailand; ginger from India; banana blossoms from Malaysia; hybrid carnations from South America.
Even the roses, which traditionally have been obtained mostly in California, now have to be supplemented with flowers from Israel, England and Holland because American growers cannot fill the demand.
Parade rules dictate that all exposed parts of the 60 floats have to be covered in fresh or dried natural materials (nothing dyed, please), be it roses, leaves, onion seeds or paprika. If a float does not have a predominantly floral appearance, there is no chance of garnering any of the 18 coveted awards. And a single float can sport as many as 200,000 blossoms. Hynd, who is responsible for the floral designs of Fiesta Float’s 14 entries, alone has ordered nearly 350,000 roses. His shopping list also includes 375,000 eucalyptus leaves for just one prehistoric monster, 57,000 carnations and 800 pounds of black onion seeds to create fur for three animated pandas on the “Treasures of China” float. He has also stocked up on 9,000 gallons of glue.
Hynd hires flower brokers to help in the search for the best buds worldwide. One of his most enthusiastic sources is Johnson, who has 10 acres of land wedged between the lush Koolau Mountain Range and Kaneohe Bay.
A former model and Mrs. Hawaii, Johnson said her friends thought she was crazy when two decades ago she decided to start growing exotics on three acres adjoining her home and another seven acres in a nearby valley. At the time her husband, Kurt, was a colonel in the Hawaii Air National Guard, and she thought the work would be a pleasant sidelight and allow her to be home with her three children.
“I wanted to grow flowers because they are so romantic. I just couldn’t see myself planting snap beans,” she said. “Flowers fill your soul.
“I started out with $200 and 1,200 red ginger plants and thought it was going to be so easy,” she said, laughing boisterously. The next two years were murder. She rented a tractor and learned how to drive it. She could not afford help, so had her parents help with the first plantings.
She made a deal with a farmer who was only too happy to supply her with chicken manure if she would haul it away. Stray cows trampled some of her flowers. Hurricanes wiped out several crops. She uses no insecticides and has usually been able to combat the bugs and flooding by growing sturdy plants with tough root systems, she said.
However, one year during a heavy storm, she was cutting down the eight-foot tall stalks of red ginger on a slippery slope. She fell on the sickle, which sliced her finger off.
Stumbling back to her ranch house, she recalled, “I could just feel my life draining from me. I kept looking up at the Pali cliffs, the site where the Oahu army jumped off in defeat on orders from King Kamehameha. I kept thinking, if I die it’s going to be up there, not down in this banana patch.”
‘Delegating Work’
Back in camp, she was treated by a country doctor and contracted gangrene. While recovering, she had a talk with herself about “delegating work.”
Johnson’s first crop of red ginger netted $2,000. Today, Flower Farm Inc. is one of the largest design companies and bulk retailers of tropical flowers in the state and has profits in the six figures. Besides the Rose Bowl float builders, her clients include hotels, airlines, conventions and private parties, as well as many of the military personnel stationed on the island. She has been named the state’s Businesswoman of the Year several times.
The floral industry, she noted, has grown considerably since she began her business, and as customers have demand more unusual bouquets, florists have called more and more for the exotic varieties.
She purposely takes time out from her administrative duties to work in the fields. “It makes you realize how powerful the Universe is . . . and it keeps you quiet inside when you work the land,” she said softly.
Johnson has seen one Rose Bowl Parade live; she and several other mounted riders represented Hawaii in 1980. “We made all the leis and flower trappings at the farm. But on parade day we had to wait so long for our turn that the horses got bored and started eating the flowers,” she said, laughing.
And her family, which was eagerly watching on television, was flabbergasted when the station cut for a commercial right when her unit came on screen.
After months of work, floral designer Hynd will have a chance to be a part of the parade, too. When New Year’s Day comes, he will ride one of his creations, the Florists Transworld Delivery Assn.’s float. He will be the one dressed in a toga and wearing a headset to give directions to the driver.
Hynd’s parade plans begin in January when he and float designer Raul Rodriquez and other workers ready sketches for sales presentations to corporate sponsors. Competition is tough since the number of floats is limited, and the only way to get a new client is to win him away from the other half a dozen float builders. Fiesta’s entries have won the Sweepstakes Award for most beautiful float eight of the last 10 years.
Work on 14 Floats
Hynd, a sturdy 46-year-old former florist who has been with Fiesta for 11 years, walked quickly through the company’s hangar where the 14 floats were being covered with seeds, grasses and other non-perishable materials.
A typical float, which can cost more than $200,000 to build and decorate, requires more blossoms than an average florist will buy in five years, Tournament of Roses officials say. Many float builders formulate contracts with growers to plant particular flowers in specific colors.
Market prices for flowers, like other commodities, vary with the season and harvest. According to the Southern California Floral Assn., wholesale prices for long-stemmed roses are $11 to $14 per 75 stems; carnations, 18 cents each; chrysanthemums, $1.50 a bunch; gladiola, 40 cents to 50 cents a stem; red ginger, $12 to $15 a dozen.
Special precautions are taken with imported flowers. Hardy ones like chrysanthemums are trucked in buckets of water. Roses and carnations are packed in chipped ice. The more exotic flowers are placed individually in water-filled vials.
Once at the float construction site, the flowers are kept in temperature-controlled sheds. Some are pasted on the floats in mid-December while delicate varieties are added only hours before parade time. Several thousand volunteers from schools, churches and clubs are hired to help with the work.
Pointing to a giant orange and yellow creation, Hynd noted wryly, “Doesn’t it remind you of a Shell service station? We’re not after good taste; we’re after flash. It’s like a Las Vegas show. You reach a crescendo--and then give the audience a little more.”
He explained that bright, clashing colors are not only “good psychologically” but a must for visibility: “If you went out and designed a float that was beautifully coordinated like a living room, you’d lose it.”
Still, the floats are often elegant. This year’s entry for Giorgio, the Beverly Hills boutique, includes models wearing fashions from the world’s top clothing designers. Hynd has planned for the elaborate statues and fountains that depict the Apollo Fountain at Versailles to be covered with silverleaf, eucalyptus and carnations. The cascading “water” will be created with iris, lilies and orchids.
Tricks of the Trade
Even Hynd is sometimes surprised at what works on a float. He has found that thin sheets of seaweed makes great eyes for creatures. Hollowed out pineapples look like tree trunks. Corn husks are painstakingly ironed and used for tusks and hoofs. Cabbages, soaked in water and vinegar, become starfish. This year he has hired an artist to carve turnips into ivory roses.
But he has stopped using chili peppers. They furnish a unique reddish hue but irritated the skin of float workers. And he has not used much paprika since the year it melted in the rain and sent red “tears” streaming down the cheeks of a large Kabuki mask.
Bad weather is the scourge of floral directors. In years in which crops have been ruined, builders say, prices of flowers can triple, eating away profits. Aside from financial risks, rain can also play havoc with the floats. Floral material on the five-ton moving stages can soak up enough rain to double their weight.
Hynd used to agonize when the parade was over and the floats had to be torn down.
“Now I tell myself that it’s just like giving a gift of flowers for the home,” he said. “We’re giving 125 million viewers a good feeling that lingers long after the flowers are gone.”
