We would really like to thank all of our friends, customers and suppliers for your thoughts after we received two uninvited guest: Hurricane Irma, and a week later, Hurricane Maria.

As we enter November and December shipping we will encounter some shortages, primarily of items lost to the hurricane. However, we are steadily increasing our production and hope to be back to normal levels in few weeks.

We apologize for the inconveniences experienced, and thank you for your patience and support.

Furthermore, we want to share with you an article regarding our status after the recent atmospheric events that affected Puerto Rico and other islands of the Caribbean. It was published by our friends from Grower’s Talk, an important publication for the commercial industry of flower growers around the world.

One Puerto Rican grower’s story

I only know one Puerto Rican grower: Jerome O’Neill of Vista Farms, who produces bougainvillea liners. Jerome has been exhibiting at the California Spring Trials for quite a few years; he always seems to come up with something new and interesting in this colorful tropical crop (for which I’ve always had a soft spot, as I used to grow hanging baskets of it back at my Florida greenhouse). Vista Farms is located in Juana Diaz, near the south-central coast of the country, close to the city of Ponce.

I was curious how Vista came through the hurricane, but couldn’t find a way to reach them. Then I learned that Ball’s Pat Senne is their product manager, and that Pat had received a brief email from Jerome. He wrote this to her:

          “We are well under the circumstances. The nursery is damaged, but not significantly. The inventory is 80% good, so we hope to resume shipping as soon as the airlines resume cargo services.” He added that they have no phone, Internet or email at the office, but he was able to communicate via email and text.

Jerome says he stripped the plastic off the houses before the storm hit to prevent the frames from being destroyed. Now they’re in the process of recovering the houses.

Pat communicated again with Jerome, asking if I could share his note, saying that it would rebuild confidence with customers and highlight the courage and resilience of Puerto Rico. Pat replied:

          “Super!” Then he added, “We have a new white ixora which we were struggling to find a name for … it will be called MARIA.”

I laughed when I read that. Talk about resilience!

Glad to hear you’re still in business, Jerome. If you need any help from the industry, let us know.

One way you, dear reader, might be able to help Jerome would be to order some Vista Farms bougainvillea liners … and some Maria Ixora.

Read the full article here.

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At Vista Farms, we have great varieties of Bougainvillea, including RijnPlant, also a selection of ixoras and hibiscus. Our extensive stock and modern propagation facilities allow us filling up diverse your plantings needs. Contact us for more information.

So, if you’re all about flowers (like we’re) check out our Blog and our pages in Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Google+ …we love to share good stuff and hear from you!