Covid Cracked the Global Flower Market, and Local Farmer-Florists Are Blooming
The pandemic was a surprise boost for local businesses centered around floral agriculture.
Jenny Elliott at Tiny Hearts Farm in Copake, N.Y.
Photographer: Aundre Larrow for Bloomberg Businessweek
April 9, opening day for Tiny Hearts Flower Shop in Hillsdale, N.Y., was a long time coming. Buckets of crimson ranunculus and towering boughs of pussy willow lined the walls, brightly awaiting local shoppers. Pails of blue anemones, grown a few minutes away in Copake, ranged from deep indigo to an ethereal gray-blue.
Like so many American businesses, the shop shuttered while the pandemic raged. Owners Luke Franco and Jenny Elliott scrambled to figure out what to do with the 40,000 tulips planted in October 2019 that sprouted into a world where weddings and baby showers were replaced by a smattering of Zoom affairs needing only a token bouquet.