Plymouth’s Len Busch Roses Preparing for Valentine’s Day Rush
Few things in life are as intertwined as Valentine’s Day and flowers.
“Oh it’s one of our top holidays,” said Lee Grundy, a senior product manager at Len Busch Roses.
Plymouth-based Len Busch Roses provides many of those flowers to independent shops and grocery stores throughout the five-state area.
They grow some of the flowers on site, but many are shipped in from other states and countries.
“Three quarter of a million rose stems are going through here, getting boxed, shipped in water, dry pack, whichever way it is to get it out to the stores for floral dozens and for bouquet work and arrangement work,” said Georgia Edgington, a floral designer at Len Busch Roses.
Edgington says the days leading up to Valentine’s Day are some of the busiest of the entire year.
Working ’round the clock
“We will work ‘round the clock, pretty much, 12 days straight,” she said.
Edgington is exaggerating about working ‘round the clock, but preparation for the big day requires long hours of packing, filling orders and loading boxes onto trucks.
Then you also have people like Lee Grundy working on quality control.
“They got bonked somehow,” Grundy said, referring to a bushel of flowers from Ecuador. “So we call that mechanical damage, and it’s just not nearly as appealing to the customer. We don’t want to have disappointed customers.”
Valentine’s flowers are meant to spread love, so the production team is doing its part to make the flowers look as presentable as possible before they hit store shelves.
“That’s always at the front of our mind when we’re buying and we’re designing products. Because we know at the end of the line, it’s always to make somebody smile,” Grundy said.
The work may be grueling and tedious, but when smiles are on the line, the staff members at Len Busch Roses say it’s a worthwhile sacrifice.
“We do enjoy what we do and we’re here for a reason. And that is to bring beauty and flowers to our customers in the end,” Edgington said.
