Bogota | Flower Farm

I didn't know before that Bogota was home to the 2nd largest producer of flowers in the world. 95% of the flowers are exported from the farm to almost every corner of the world. The remaining 5% are supposed to be the worst of the batch. The worst of the best is still pretty amazing to me. 

I visited on February 18 - four days after Valentine's day and 10 days after all the most beautiful flowers were harvested for the holidays. Apparently, Valentines day makes up something like 20% of the annual profit for the farm. The rose, for instance, is usually $0.30. After shipping and handling and paying the middle men to get it to the stores, the rose on most days ends up being around 4-5 dollars. On Valentine's day, the cost of the rose jumps to $1.30. As I'm sure does the shipping and handling fees. Thus explaining the mystery of how a flower that originally isn't too expensive jumps to eat half someone's paycheck.

The farm we visited in particular was one of 5 sister farms that all produce different variations and different flowers that go into all of our holidays. The farm buys the original DNA plants and then uses the sprouts over again to propagate other daughter and grand daughter plants. In order to plan for these major holidays, the process has to start about 18 months in advance. Meaning, that when you bought the rose for Valentines day 2017, someone was already thinking about it in 2015. 

All in all, even though I visited when inventory was depleted, the flowers there were still beautiful. The colors are vibrant and the air is delicately perfumed. Definitely worth it; even though I would highly recommend trying to visit before a major holiday before all the flowers are cut - say, for instance, Mother's day which is right around the corner.