GROWER OF THE MONTH
Voorn Sprayroses
Voorn Sprayroses is an international grower of spray roses. The company values a recognisable and consistent balance in colour, bud volume, bud distribution, flowering habit, shelf life and fragrance. The range consists of year-round spray roses, grown with passion and craftsmanship in the Netherlands and loved throughout Europe and beyond. To see how Voorn Sprayroses operates, we visited the company.
History
Voorn Sprayroses is a family business founded in the 1980s. The company offers a wide range of beautiful and high-quality spray roses and is now, years later, a household name in the Netherlands, as well as in Europe and beyond.
In 2017, the company started growing spray roses to better differentiate itself in the market. This change allows the company to introduce innovations every year. Before Frank started with spray roses, he only grew the single-flowered Grand Prix cultivar.
Year-round quality
Voorn Sprayroses offers top quality spray roses year-round, both in the wedding season from May to September and in the winter period. The assortment consists of a wide range of colours and varieties, from ivory white (Josephine) to Dutch orange (Coral Bubbles).
New cultivars are constantly being developed to expand the range. Frank introduces a new variety every year, which puts him in a cycle where he can renew a quarter of the crop every year. By introducing new varieties each time, Voorn Sprayroses can better respond to market demand and replace plant material faster, which increases quality.
Growing spray roses
Voorn Sprayroses Nursery has long rows of plants grown on rockwool slabs. This ensures good water absorption and drainage holes allow the water to drain easily. It takes about 7 to 8 weeks before the plant is fully grown, and the first rose stems can be harvested. The spray roses are cut and processed manually.
Voorn Sprayroses selects the cultivars on key characteristics to create a unique balance of colour, fragrance, bud volume, bud distribution, inflorescence, and shelf life.
Cutting stages
When growing spray roses, Frank Voorn has devised and followed his own plan. He delivers spray roses in mutually different cutting stages. He has achieved this by cutting the roses and testing them in their own cold store to see what happens after they are harvested. Thus, they mimic the chain by leaving the roses for several days to see how the cultivar develops until it arrives at the florist. Based on this information, he was able to determine the perfect cutting stage for each variety.
A cutting stage was thus determined separately for each cultivar. For this, Frank calculates back from consumer use to the nursery. Some spray roses ripen further down the chain and others do not. The cutting stage can also vary by season, for example, in winter when they are at a more mature stage.
Warm and cold greenhouse
Voorn Sprayroses grows roses in both hot and cold greenhouses. Heated greenhouses offer more control over growing conditions, making it possible to produce high-quality roses all year round.
From May to October, cultivation also takes place in the cold greenhouse. In this greenhouse, the temperature is not artificially raised and depends on the outside air and the season. This means that heating costs are avoided, and production costs are reduced. By using the cold greenhouse, Voorn Sprayroses can produce larger quantities and provide a varied supply, which matches the demand during the wedding season.
However, some varieties of roses cannot withstand the changing conditions of a cold greenhouse and need to be grown in a controlled, constant environment. Therefore, the standard varieties and those requiring a constant climate are grown in a heated greenhouse.
