The Plant Nursery Industry and Plant Shows

MANILA, Philippines - May is the month when nurserymen allover the world shift from spring young plant sales to pre-grown autumn bloomers. Towards the last quarter of the month, the tulip growers and other outfield bulb growers in Netherlands will be cutting all the flowers off the plants to allow the bulbs to grow bigger in preparation for lifting on June or later. This prepares the bulbs for programming from August to October.

Lean Season

In the Philippines, May signifies the last month when the plant nurserymen make their money through plant sale. This is the time to gear up for the coming lean season in sales starting June up to September. Traditionally, this is the period when flowering and non-flowering pot plants stop selling and stay on the bench. This was analyzed many years back by some economists and they found out that Filipinos budget their money for the school opening during June; while in July, they need to buy school supplies and will resist buying plants during this season.

This annual lean season is the time the progressive nurserymen travels abroad to look for new plant varieties to introduce to the market. Since it is also the start of the rainy season, it is the best time to propagate and grow new nursery stocks and to throw out the non-performing stocks.

This phenomenon of low sale season is characteristic of pot plant industry but does not apply to cutflowers and landscaping plants. The marrying months of May and June in fact are minor peak seasons in flower marketing. The funeral flower market is relatively constant through out the year except for a major Nov. 1 peak.

Orchids, although always incorrectly classified as cutflowers, are actually being sold as flowering pot plants, thus is affected by sluggish sale from June to September.

Plants and flower shows

The Nursery Industry generally holds exhibitions, sales, pack trials, trade shows and expos as marketing tools during lean seasons. The plant shows are very effective in increasing the revenue for the nursery companies and collateral industries. 

Philippine Nursery Industry is dominated by orchid growers. All orchid shows are traditionally held to coincide with flowering season of the two most famous Philippine orchid species: Euanthe sanderana (Waling waling) and Dendrobium anosmum (Sanggumay). This leads to the regularly rained out shows (in Luzon) held during August (for the Waling waling) and the better March (Sanggumay) Show. Davao, the original locality for Waling waling does very good August Shows (better weather in Mindanao). Los Baños group times their shows to coincide with the graduation time (April) at the University town and the UPLB Loyalty Day (October). 

In the past few years, the shows in Philippines have been described by some Singaporeans as “Shrinking Violets”, meaning the quality of exhibit has deteriorated and the quantity of plants has declined. It may be time to shift from Exhibitions to Trade Shows that will involve the collateral industries like irrigation, pesticides, fertilizers, growing media, equipment, pots and seed industries.

The different plant associations may want to re-think the objectives, the structure and the timing of their shows to boost the sales of the participating nurseries. After all, the commercial sector is the one footing the bill of each show. A happy commercial sector makes a financially healthy organization.