Jennifer Blanchard

Floral sales are a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States. Americans spent $72.8 billion on flowers, seeds and potted plants in 2023, according to the Society of American Florists. Louisiana flower farming is a growing industry, and producers have an opportunity to share in this booming market by marketing flowers traditionally sold at retail as well as native plants that already thrive in the state.

Flowers in the U.S. are grown in controlled environment greenhouses, hoop houses and the field. The U.S. boasts flower farms in all 50 states and almost 9,000 producers across the country. Eighty percent of the cut flowers grown in the U.S. are sourced from California and Florida, with the two states battling it out each year for the top spot. In Louisiana, there are more than 40 cut flower farms, and the value of sales in Louisiana from cut flowers and cut florist greens grew from $113,245 in 2017 to $432,570 in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This spring, more than 30 old, new and enthusiastic future flower farmers attended an AgCenter commercial cut flower training led by Denyse Cummins, program adviser of the Louisiana Farm to School Program and a cut flower grower in Lafayette. The event was hosted by Carl Motsenbocker of the LSU AgCenter School of Plant, Environmental and Soil Sciences and cohosted by the Southern University Ag Center and supported by funding from a Louisiana Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant. They attended the session to learn more about sustainably growing, planting and marketing cut flowers.

The cut flower industry in Louisiana is dominated by women, and some of these female farmers also work full-time jobs. Dawn Saucier, in Zachary, works as a project manager for a chemical plant. Destin Sims, of Loranger, is an attorney. Reesa Gravois-Arabie, of Lockport, is a shipyard supervisor. In addition, some are wives, full-time moms, grandmothers and students while also tending their flower fields.

Most of the cut flower varieties currently being grown are non-native, and for myriad reasons each farmer in the state has unique experiences growing these plants depending on their location. Roberta McKowen, the snapdragon queen of Jackson, Louisiana, is a retired small animal veterinarian and sheep farmer. She has access to more than 1,000 acres and forages for some of her native blooms, like obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana ssp. praemorsa). Most of the varieties grown for cut flowers are not native to Louisiana and don’t grow easily in the hot, humid climate. Many who attended the training were eager to discuss using natives as cut flowers and exchange information about which plants are already being used and what potential new species could be added to the list.

Natives have evolved and adapted to our environment, making them sustainable selections for growing and providing multiple ecological services, such as food, habitat and pollinator plants. Growers could see some samples of the plants up close. Of these samples, many growers were interested in the rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) — the king of the Cajun prairie once used by Native Americans to heal snakebite, hence the name. It has a long, sturdy stem with chartreuse-to-white-colored flowers (called buttons) and an interesting texture, making it an ideal selection for use in floral arrangements fresh or dried. There are three other species of Eryngium native to the state. Hooker's eryngo (Eryngium hookeri) and blueflower eryngo (Eryngium integrifolium) have purple-to-blue flowers that represent hard-to-find hues in the floral industry, making them ideal candidates for native cut flower exports.

Louisiana flower farmers have an opportunity to cultivate and develop a booming, blossoming business and take a bite out of a big billion-dollar pie, but getting there is going to take some knowledge, expertise and experience coupled with failed trials along the way. The LSU AgCenter works hard to do valuable research and help alleviate some of the guesswork for farmers. Of the growers who attended the training, only a few used natives.

Farmers Alisha and Jacob Delahoussaye in Sunset use wax myrtle (Morella cerifera) and Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) as greenery in their arrangements. Leah Latiolais, of Husser in Tangipahoa Parish, is the leader of the pack in growing natives for cut flowers in Louisiana. A graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University with a degree in ecology, she started growing cut flowers in 2018 for a commercial farm in Tangipahoa Parish. She is now entering her seventh season as a grower turning her passion into her own business and growing more than 25 species of native flowers in addition to non-natives. Her go-to natives include pepper grass (Lepidium virginicum), purple and white varieties of echinacea (Echinacea purpurea) and pale coneflower (Echinacea pallida), rudbeckias (Rudbeckia triloba and Rudbeckia hirta), and baptisia — all colors and varieties, including the white baptisia (Baptisia alba) and the yellow (Baptisia sphaerocarpa).

Latiolais grows several varieties and colors of beebalms and wild bergamots like lemon beebalm (Monarda citriodora), bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyma), and dotted or spotted horsemint (Monarda punctata). In addition to the natives, she grows more than 75 other varieties of non-natives for cut flowers. Latiolais said many of the non-natives will be cut (pun intended) from the team this year. Her focus has been and will continue to be on natives because she finds them to be less problematic and better for the environment, feeding and supporting the life cycle of native bees and other pollinators.

As for the future of horticulture in cut flower production in Louisiana, there is tremendous growth possible. Further research on natives for cut flowers is needed to identify additional species that would be suitable for growing in our beautiful state.

Jennifer Blanchard is a botanist and an instructor of horticulture in the LSU College of Agriculture School of Plant, Environmental and Soil Sciences and the AgCenter.

This article appears in the fall 2024 edition of Louisiana Agriculture.

The world trade of cut flowers, which is defined as “cut flowers and flower buds of a kind suitable for bouquets or for ornamental purposes, fresh, dried, dyed, bleached, impregnated or otherwise prepared” by the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), was $9.66 billion dollars in 2022.

Imports of cut flowers to the U.S. were $3.3 billion in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with most of these floral products coming into the country from 81 countries around the world including Colombia, Canada, Ecuador, the EU, Mexico, Kenya and others, the OEC found in 2023.

Destin Sims works at a bouquet bar at Flower Fest in Baton Rouge. Photo by Jennifer Blanchard

Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa)

Photo by Jennifer Blanchard

Eastern purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)

Photo by Jennifer Blanchard

A flower farm in Loranger, Louisiana. Photo by Jennifer Blanchard

Scarlet beebalm. Photo by Jennifer Blanchard