Flowers are often given as a gift to offer comfort, hope and cheer in times of trouble.
But amid the woes of a global pandemic, flower sales for many florists wilted last year.
The $20 billion-a-year global floral industry has suffered as weddings, funerals and other public events were scrapped or delayed and many retail outlets for flower sales were limited due to the pandemic. Everyday floral sales slumped as recession-weary shoppers prioritized food and rent over roses and begonias and retail selling opportunities for flower sales were reduced.
As a result, the coronavirus claimed another business casualty this month with the closing of Herr Flowers, a Middle Tennessee floral business that sold fresh-cut flowers at open-air markets in Chattanooga and Knoxville for most of the past decade.
"Because we had everything planted last year before COVID hit, we did try to make a go of it in 2020 and we thought about doing it again," said Davona Vang, one of the co-owners of Herr Flowers. "But with the way business has been and still is, we just couldn't justify it."
Vang and Paul Herr, the husband and wife co-owners of Herr Flowers, came to Middle Tennessee in 2011 to grow flowers for the Chattanooga Sunday Market and other special events and farmer's markets.
"Who would have ever thought that in 2011 when we packed up and left Wisconsin to become flower farmers in Middle Tennessee, that we'd gain so much," Vang said. "We'd been blessed to meet so many new people, make new friends, and friends become family. With all great things though, there must be an end."
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Paul Herr of Herr's Flowers, foreground, completes a arrangement while Davona Vang waits on a customer last year at the Chattanooga Market. The couple have closed their Herr Flowers, blaming the slowdown in floral sales and difficulties created by the pandemic.Vang said "with great sadness," she and her husband decided not to pursue another year of trying to grow and sell flowers as the pandemic lingers.
"COVID made everything a lot harder and there's a lot of work that goes into doing the planting, harvesting, cutting and arranging of flowers and we just weren't having the volume of sales we needed to make sense for us to remain open," she said.
The worldwide cut flower market had been blooming prior to the pandemic and was predicted to grow roughly 6.3% over the five years ending in 2024. But the floral market fell an estimated 6.2% last year, largely due to the pandemic, according to Sundae Research.
In the U.S. last year, there were 31,663 florists, with 65,000 employees.
Herr Flowers handled a few weddings and special events, but most of its sales came from open market sales at the Knoxville Market Square on Saturdays and the Chattanooga Market on Sunday. Such events drew too small of crowds during the pandemic to justify all of the work in preparing, growing, cutting and arranging flowers for the weekly market, Vang said
Vang and Herr grew their flowers on about five of the 27 acres they own on their farm in Coffee County.
"We may try again at a future date, if things get back to more normal," said Vang, who also works full-time at First National Bank of Middle Tennessee. "But as of right now, we're not staying in the business."
The couple began selling their flowers at the Chattanooga Market in 2011 and continued selling even last year when the Chattanooga Market limited its volume of vendors due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chattanooga Market, which rebranded itself last year as the Chattanooga Essentials Market when it opened in the spring of 2020, limited the number of vendors to 100 or less last year, or fewer than half the 245 vendors housed in the First Tennessee Pavilion downtown on a typical Sunday in previous years.
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / At Herr's Flowers booth at the Chattanooga Market last year, buckets of blooms await to be sold, as Davona Vang and Paul Herr work the floral display. Herr Flowers will not reopen this year, another casualty of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.Chattanooga Market Operator Chris Thomas said 2020 was a tough year, but he is hoping for a better 2021, especially by summer when most American adults are expected to be vaccinated for COVID-19.
"Farming is a tough business even in a good year and last year was particularly difficult for many of our farmers," Thomas said. "Losing a farmer like Herr Flowers is hard and we're certainly sad to see them go."
Thomas is opening the River Market at the Tennessee Aquarium on Friday and Saturday and the Collegedale Market on Sunday. The Chattanooga Market in the First Tennessee Pavilion will open this year April 24-25.
Although the number of vendors and visitors will continue to be limited for now, Thomas said he is hopeful by the Fourth of July that events can return to more normal operations as vaccines become widespread and the virus weakens.
"Overall, I think this is going to be a great year," Thomas said. "I know a lot of food trucks were decimated last year and we probably had a half dozen of those go out of business in this area. So there may still be a little bit of a lull, but this is an entrepreneurial business and I'm confident as business comes back we'll see a lot more vendors and customers coming out again."
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / In a blur of activity Herr Flowers of McMinnville, Tennessee florists, left to right, Paul Herr, Davoua Vang and Christine Collins, prepare hundreds of arrangments for Mothers Day visitors at the Chattanooga Market in 2017. After operating at the Chattanooga Market for nearly a decade, Herr Flowers is closing due to the pandemic.