Funerals a boost for flower sellers
USED to arranging bouquets for birthdays and weddings, the Adderley Street flower sellers in Cape Town are receiving more requests for funerals, memorial flower arrangements and condolence flowers as a consequence of Covid-19 pandemic deaths.
Alison Snyders and her sister, Karin Bachmann, have been selling flowers for 40 years at the Adderley Street Flower Market.
Snyders says recently most frequent requests had been for flower arrangements for funerals and condolence baskets.
Snyders says the increase in the requests followed the move from adjusted level 4 Covid-19 lockdown in terms of the Disaster Management Act. “It’s still in high demand. It was mostly Covid-related or sudden deaths.”
Faldiela Gamildien, a flower seller for over 10 years, was brought up in a family involved in the cut flower trade for almost 30 years. She said general requests were for funerals, weddings, birthday celebrations and major holidays such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Christmas.
Gamieldien said they were, however, seeing an increase in flower orders for funerals due to the Covid19 pandemic.
“It started to increase about three months after we were hit with the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa and up until now it hasn’t really slowed down, to be honest. We are definitely experiencing a lot of Covid19 deaths,” Gamieldien said.
Gairoeniesa Oliver, 42, has been selling flowers since the age of 14. “This is a part of our heritage. I grew up selling flowers. Funerals have become the more popular requests. We’re seeing lots of Covid-19 deaths, every day.
“We are 14 people competing with one another, but everybody has a funeral every week – a couple of them.”