Come and look but please don’t help yourself
A Southland tulip business is fed up with people picking its flowers.
Horizon Flowers New Zealand Limited manager Roy Smak said a ‘‘flood of people’’ came to the fields at Mabel Bush and ‘‘helped themselves’’ to the flowers or dug bulbs.
He was not sure if they knew of the impact it would have on other flowers, which had died because of bulbs torn out or diseases spread.
‘‘We just want the public to be aware that this is our bread and butter,’’ he said.
People often ran away when they were caught out, he said.
‘‘You wouldn’t go onto a farmer’s paddock and shoot his cattle for meat.’’
People were welcome to come and take photos, even come onto the fields if they respected the field and staff, he said.
‘‘I love our display and I’m proud of it.’’
But people who were parking their cars on the grass of the private property, leaving gates open and stealing flowers were ruining it for the rest.
‘‘It seems to be a step beyond fair,’’ Smak said.
Unlike other tulip growers, the business exports a continuous supply of bulbs overseas, and its main markets are in America and Scandinavia. In its 60 hectares of land, they grow and export about 30 containers worth of bulbs a year.
Each container has about 800,000 bulbs, which go to supermarket chains.