Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.A white delivery van pulled into the parking lot of a central Omaha restaurant Monday and the driver stepped out.
Bob Boelter delivers for Hy-Vee Floral and was about to make Laura Jost very happy.
Her husband, Mark, wanted Valentine's Day flowers sent to her at work a day early for an extra surprise. So he ordered roses delivered Monday to the restaurant she owns near 50th and Dodge Streets.
Boelter slid open the side door of the van, pulled out the bouquet and stepped through snow toward the door of the Noodle Zoo.
The roses looked fresh-picked. But they had been on a trip, one much greater than the 12 miles between the west Omaha Hy-Vee where they were ordered and Jost's restaurant.
The flowers began their travels south of Omaha, way south — nearly 3,000 miles away in Colombia.
Most flowers sold in the United States get their start in South America, and their arrival fresh on Valentine's Day depends on proper watering, precise temperatures and a series of hand-offs involving planes, semi trailers and vans.
"It's quite a journey," said Brent Highfill, president of Hy-Vee-owned Florist Distributing Inc., the floral arm of the grocery store chain.
Hy-Vee buys many of its flowers from Miami-based Queen's Flowers, which operates more than 1,500 acres of farms in Colombia producing 1 billion stems annually. Highfill said Colombia is ideal for growing flowers because it has a variety of elevations and climates.
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Roses and carnations, for example, grow best in the higher and cooler conditions at 8,300 feet. Gerbera daisies and hydrangea like the warmer temperatures at 4,900 feet.
Colombia has soil that drains well, making it just right for flowers, said Kathleen Cue of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Service in Douglas and Sarpy Counties. Standing water can weaken roots and affect the color, fullness and life of the flower, she said.
After the flowers are harvested, they are hauled on refrigerated trucks from the farms to the airport in Bogota, Colombia, for the 3½-hour flight to Miami. The flowers are stored in warehouse coolers at the Miami headquarters of Queen's Flowers.
Refrigerated semi-trailers then carry the flowers to Hy-Vee's five floral distribution centers in the Midwest. One is near 144th Street and Industrial Road in southwest Omaha.
That center supplies flowers to 50 Hy-Vee stores in a region that includes Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island and parts of western Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota.
Valentine's Day flowers started arriving at the 18,000-square-foot Omaha distribution center on Feb. 3, said Pat Behnke, the general manager.
They were stored in a 34-degree walk-in cooler that contained all the popular varieties for Valentine's Day. Roses. Daisies. Lilies.
At 3,200-square-feet, the cooler is the size of a ranch house.
Cardboard boxes stacked 10-feet high were marked with destinations of stores near and far: 51st and Center Streets and 156th Street and West Maple Road in Omaha; Sioux City, Iowa, and Sioux Falls, S.D.
Starting on Feb. 5 and continuing through today, the center's crews pulled boxes from the cooler and loaded trucks and vans.
Early last week, Tim Moore and other crew members loaded a van taking flowers to stores in Council Bluffs. He and other employees hoisted and stacked boxes until the van was full.
Moore slammed the back door of the van and it pulled away for the trip across the Missouri River.
Drivers racked up more than 45,000 miles delivering Valentine's Day flowers to the Omaha center's 50 stores.
The distribution center also supplies stores with vases in any size and shape they'll need — 6-inch tall, 8-inch tall or 9-inch tall. Vases with skinny necks, wide and round necks and vases with eight sides.
In preparation for Valentine's Day, the center delivered 75,000 vases, plus more than 2,000 rolls of ribbons, candles and other items to dress up the arrangements.
Cindy Fitzgerald manages the floral shop in the Hy-Vee at 178th and Pacific Streets in Omaha and has been creating arrangements for nearly 30 years. Her store alone will deliver more than 250 arrangements across the Omaha area for Valentine's Day.
When she builds an arrangement, she thinks about the emotions, the happiness the flowers will bring.
"It's just not a bunch of flowers in a vase,'' she said.
To build an arrangement that pops, she starts with ferns.
She places 20 stems of leather leaf fern at varying angles into a 9-inch tall glass vase. Then she pulls 24-inch-long red roses from a plastic bucket filled with water and flower food, cutting at least 1 inch off the end of the stem.
She places the first rose in the center of the vase and then adds four more, creating a square around the first one. She turns the vase as she places the remaining roses, creating a uniform pattern around the center rose.
Fitzgerald then adds tree fern, a delicate-looking plant that gives the arrangement a light and airy look. For a final touch, she makes a red ribbon, attaches it to a thin green wire, and slips it into the bouquet.
Done.
Back at the Noodle Zoo restaurant, the flower delivery man knocked on the restaurant's back door, holding the flowers out.
Jost opened the door.
"My gosh,'' she said. "Thank you."
She carried the flowers into the restaurant. She beamed as she pulled away the plastic wrapping, unveiling a bouquet of yellow roses — her favorite.
Outside it was a cold, wet snowy day. Inside Jost had a glimpse of spring.
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Contact the writer: 402-444-1122, michael.oconnor@owh.com
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