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EASTER IN JULY?
by Karl D. Johnson |
One would think so from the sweet scent of the hundreds of thousands of
snow-white flowers that burst forth each summer in the rich soil south of
Brookings' Chetco River. Obviously, the summertime blooming is definitely
out of time with the Easter holiday, but Mother Nature will have her way and the
beautiful plants we purchase in the spring are blooming only because they were
"forced" to bloom by the wholesale nurseries that supply them to your
local florist. Some 11,000,000 lily plants are grown annually in the fifteen
mile coastal strip between Brookings, Oregon and Smith River, California,
virtually every commercially grown lily in the world! Although they've
been tried in many other areas ranging from Bermuda to Holland, the only areas
where the flower has really been successfully grown are here and in Japan where
flower marketing efforts were abruptly interrupted by World War II. The
raising of a marketable Easter Lily bulb is a very care-intensive three-year
process and huge investments of money, time and research have gone into
producing the disease-resistant variety we see today. To be sold, the bulb
must meet the industry standard of 8 inches in circumference and must produce
plants not exceeding 23 inches in height so they will fit into the 24 inch
packing boxes used for shipment to retailers. In the early summer months,
visitors to Brookings will often see crews of workers snipping the budding
flowers from the plants to add more strength to the final products which are the
bulbs themselves. Later, usually about Labor Day, the harvesting of the
bulbs takes place. Plants are dug from the ground, new bulblets are
planted and commercial sized bulbs are processed and packed in peat- moss filled
boxes for shipment to nurseries all over the United States and Canada. So
wherever you may live in this wide world, when you next behold the glory of an
Easter Lily in full bloom, you can almost be certain that cherished plant had
its humble beginnings in the soil near Brookings-Harbor, another products of
Oregon's "Pacific Wonderland". 
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