Regional farm dinner series is blossoming
Next Petals and Plates event is Oct. 28
Josh Bulk knows the secret to keeping Gerbera daisies perky.
Fresh water and cool temperatures will keep the colourful blooms he grows at Rosa Flora Ltd. in Dunnville standing soldierstraight instead of slouching in a sad droop.
Bulk also seems to have the formula down for keeping a chin up.
Three years ago, he watched as a large section of the massive greenhouse business his parents, Otto and Corine, established in 1978 went up in flames.
Bulk stood by helplessly as fire razed nearly two of Rosa Flora’s five buildings used to grow snapdragons, lisianthus, lilies and Gerberas.
Bulk, who oversees IT as a coowner at Rosa Flora, recalled it was one of his darkest days as he watched the flames take down most of the snapdragon greenhouses. The cause of the blaze remains a mystery.
“From two in the morning till four in the morning, as it’s burning, I’m trying to save as much data as I can,” Bulk said. “I didn’t have any sleep that day.”
Two days after the fire on March 6, 2014, Rosa Flora was selling flowers to wholesalers again. Less than a year later, the greenhouses were rebuilt.
And three and half years later on a recent Saturday night, Bulk played host to 80 dinner guests in one of those reconstructed snapdragon buildings. It was part of Flowers Canada’s Petals and Plates greenhouse dinner and tour series. And it was impossible to tell that this stunning scene, a harvest table amid thousands of blooming snapdragons, was ever the setting of a tragedy.
“It’s God’s blessings,” said Bulk as he led a tour through Rosa Flora’s 1.5 million square feet under glass. “We wouldn’t have been able to do this without the support of others in the business. My wife, our customers, our employees — they were here in our darkest days. Our vendors and competitors, they lent us trucks and helped us get through.”
Petals and Plates is Flowers Canada’s newly launched farm dinner series intended to highlight local flower growers and their importance in their communities. The next local Petals and Plates dinner happens Saturday, Oct. 28 at CosMic Plants Inc., an orchid greenhouse in Beamsville. Tickets are $100 per person plus tax.
At the series kickoff at Rosa Flora, Bulk showed guests what goes into being North America’s largest producer of cut Gerbera daisies. The evening included a four-course meal by chef Jan-Willem Stulp of Grand Oak Culinary Market in Vineland. Guests got to leave with flowers of their own, and make flower crowns for the occasion.
The dinner next month at CosMic Plants will follow a similar format with a tour, dinner by Stulp, and a boutonnière bar.
It was a showy event for an industry that’s typically avoided the spotlight. That shyness was due to negative media attention that industry insider Dejan Kristan said caused greenhouse agriculture to be “labelled unfairly.
“Through experience a lot of people had said ‘Let’s keep our heads down like in the past. We’ve never had any good come of (attention),’ ” said Kristan, who is the marketing director for the Ontario branch of Flowers Canada. “But a lot (of greenhouses) have had a positive effect on their communities.”
The best way to share that story is to invite people to hear it from growers themselves, he noted. And the way to get an audience to show up is to “pair it with a nice night out,” including dinner.
Enter Petals and Plates, modelled after the popular Field to Vase dinners in the United States.
“It’s an easier way to get people in a greenhouse and once they’re in the greenhouse, growers can share their story. We’re not reaching as many people as an ad would, but we’re reaching them on a much deeper level,” Kristan said. “The main idea is for people to meet this community of growers.”
It helps, too, that younger growers aren’t as leery of attention as their predecessors.
Bulk represents that new generation of greenhouse owner eager to showcase what happens under glass. He leapt at the chance to host Petals and Plates at Rosa Flora.
“We really need to show the public and say this is a huge component of Ontario’s economy, and it’s kind of shoved to the side and ignored,” Bulk said. “It’s really a beautiful industry. I just want people to be excited by flowers.”
Visit petalsandplates.ca for more information about their dinners and tours.