Mississippi Grown Cut Flower Association To Educate Businesses

When one pictures Mississippi fragrant magnolias come to mind as well as seemingly endless fields of cotton.  Now picture those fields but with bright flowers from floral shops all over the South: peonies, Asiatic lilies, dahlias and even sunflowers for cutting to sell to florists.  Thus was born the state’s inaugural Mississippi Grown Cut Flower Association, an organization that educates locals to grow profitable cut flowers that can be sold to venues.

The president of Mississippi Urban Forest Council, Donna Yowell, has had this vision ever since she owned a flower shop in Jackson – the first “bucket shop” that sold loose stems of cut flowers for 15 years.

“We purchased from wholesalers that bought most flowers from other countries and we ordered from a cut flower farm in South America. Every time I opened a box of flowers I was reminded that we can grow 90 percent of what I was ordering from Bogota,” said Yowell.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Mississippi Business Journal