Bouquets to Art

"Yes, I was an engineer, but I gave it up to do what I love."

"No, I'm not making money, but I am happy."

Those were the words of the floral designer, here with her design.

Every year, I look forward to the opening night gala of Bouquets to Art at the de Young 

I always admire and appreciate the beautiful interpretative floral designs, 

and am very mindful of the hard work behind the amazing finished WOW. 

Simply put: a night of wonder shared with friends... 

(catching up with old ones and making new ones)

For the entire album, like us on Facebook 

Thanks for this picture Jenny! Jenny Tabarracci AIFD

City College of San Francisco Students and their floral fashions. Thanks Jenny!

Carol & Stuart Kitayama

Linda Nguyen

Kitayama Brothers

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WFE in LA

It was a family affair at the World Flower Expo in LA on Wednesday.  Cousin Dave and Wendy (Dave’s wife) set up the booth which looked great.  Brother Scott (no picture) came to town to talk to his Ecuadorian rose grower; he made a little time for his brother.   Here is Wendy with Ben Dobbe at the HAL booth, we like the patio furniture; we are going to steal that idea for the Fun N Sun booth.

A nice surprise was young cousin Daniel came to visit us at the show.  He was great. 

He talked to the customers, posed with a flower hat, pretended he was in the flower business; acted interested and overall left a good impression. 

Cousin Janet from Green Valley, she won’t admit she is related to us (she is not, but we like her that much), and a Japanese flower importer, Hiroyuki, who was interesting.   

For a first time show, we think WFE was worthwhile attending.  It will be back and so will we.

RHK

Kitayama Brothers

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Women’s Day 2015

Confess, who knows when and what Women’s Day is?  

(March 8th is International Women's Day) It was first celebrated in the early 1900’s as a way to start recognizing women’s rights. The earliest Women’s Day observance was held on February 28, 1909, in New York. It is celebrated mainly in Europe and Asia where people buy flowers and other gifts for the women in their lives.  

The American flower industry wants to make this an American holiday. We were not sure how to promote this holiday but according to my daughters, if the holiday benefited women and women’s causes they could support it.  I thought that was a great suggestion.

  

Therefore on this first Women’s Day promotion, 

KB is donating 10% of our sales on March 6^th to two groups: 

Walnut Avenue Women’s Center in SantaCruz 

Monarch Women’s Center in Watsonville.  

KB is also advertising in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on March 1, 4 and 6 

listing our customers who are also donating to local women’s causes on Women’s Day. 

IF possible, please support one of these businesses.

Whether you buy flowers or not, on March 8^th let the women in your life know 

how much you appreciate them.

http://www.kitayamabrothers.com/index.php/womensday

RHK

Kitayama Brothers

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Getting Ready for the Holiday

Walking around the farm, we are gearing up for the Valentine rush

We had forecasted this year would be down as a result of the Saturday holiday, and we planted accordingly.  Hindsight is 20/20 and we probably should have grown a bit more as we are currently sold out of Gerberas, Lisianthus, Starfighters, Pink Orientals and Snapdragons.  We have tulips and novelty items to sell: talk to your KB rep to see what we have.  

Here is a picture of the warehouse, you can still see the floor space, 

so you know we haven’t gone into full production yet.

Our grower Jimmy Zheng is standing in front of his lily crop.  

We are sold out, so thank you for ordering your lilies this Valentine.  

Oriental lilies will continue to be in short supply for the remainder of the year, 

because of the unstable bulb supply and a backlog of containers at the container ports 

due to a longshoreman strike.  We will do our best to supply our customers.

As for the Valentine holiday, take it one day at a time, it will be over before you know it.  Then you will have just enough time to prepare for Women’s Day on March 8^th!

RHK 

Kitayama Brothers

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Thoughtful Flowers

As a flower grower since 1948, Kitayama Brothers have had many opportunities to donate our beautiful flowers to different causes, events, shows and organizations throughout the years.

It feels good to do good, even more so, when the donation was to a worthy cause right here in our hometown. Below are a couple of pictures from Second Harvest Food Bank Santa Cruz County at their recent Volunteer Lunch.

www.kitayamabrothers.com

www.thefoodbank.org

~ Linda Nguyen

KB Annual Benefit Event

This year, 40 Kitayama family members hosted over 1,000 people at our family business's 4th Annual Open House event on June 15, 2013. This free-admission event was open to the public as a one-day opportunity to see the behind-the-scenes workings of our flower farm and shipping warehouse. 

The day was filled with greenhouse tours, a professional flower design contest, food & wine, games, informational tables, and an abundance of local flowers and produce offered at great prices. Proceeds from all sales at this event benefited the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks (501c Nonprofit, www.thatsmypark.org). Palm, Sunset, Manresa, and Nisene Marks state parks are our nearby neighbors and we at KB are happy to work with FSCSP to put on a community event that can support the efforts to keep our local state parks and beaches clean, safe, and staffed with rangers and lifeguards. 

Since 1948, our company has been growing and shipping a variety of cut flowers to wholesale and large event florists. Our farm is located at 481 San Andreas Road in Watsonville, California. Please feel free to contact us at 800-472-4184 or visit us at www.kitayamabrothers.com.

Thanks for attending, and we hope to continue to improve this event. See you and your friends at the 5th Annual Open House in June 2014! 

Short film created by: Daniel Kitayama (footage and interviews) and Eileen Kitayama (footage & editing) at the 2012 and 2013 open house events. On-screen speakers: Robert Kitayama, Scott Kitayama, David Kitayama, and visiting members of the public. Background music: "Flor de Capomo" by Carlos y Jose.

THIS FILM IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES AND PROMOTES A NON-PROFIT COMMUNITY EVENT.

We're Only As Good As Our People

Jesus Lopez

This past Friday, we had a retirement luncheon for Jesus Lopez.  Jesus had been with Kitayama Brothers for 25 years and he was the grading room manager.   

Over the past 25 years, Jesus has ridden the roller coaster ride called the flowers business with Kitayama Brothers. 25 years ago, Kitayama Brothers Watsonville was the largest rose grower in the USA with 2 million sq. ft. rose. Today, we don’t grow a single stem of roses.   

Jesus has seen the transition from roses into what we are today, a large grower of a variety of cut flowers: oriental and asiatic lilies, gerbera daisies, lisianthus, snapdragons, gardenias, iris, stock, mini callas and a few other crops.

The challenge for Jesus was to learn the standards for grading a variety of different flower crops. Management often takes it for granted that staff will adapt to changes we implement and Jesus has always been able to train his crew to take care of whatever new crop we sent to the grade.   

We also must recognize the flower holidays that Jesus and his crew had to worked weekends and into the night to get the extra flowers graded for our customers.    

We want to thank Jesus for his work and wish him well as he moves to Gardnerville in Nevada.

 30 Year Employees

At the same luncheon, we took a picture of 6 employees who have been with Kitayama Brothers Watsonville over 30 years. They include Guadalupe Melendrez, Isidoro Mendoza, Manuel Cruz, Heriberto Garcia, Alfredo Ramirez and Jose T. Zavala.  

Hard work and flower knowledge was how we grew great flowers and grew our company over the last 30 years. The reason we still grow flowers in the USA is because our staff still carries on the tradition of hard work and flower knowledge from the old days.   

These gentlemen continue to be the messengers of this ethic. Kitayama Brothers must continue to look forward, but we should not forget who helped get us here.

KB California Carnations

Intrigued by the title? Read more...

 

We're just back from Fun N Sun in Santa Barbara and a lot of attendees said it was the best Fun N Sun yet.  Kitayama Brothers staff and shareholders had a great time and I think we may have gained a little business.  Imagine that, actually feeling like a trade show was worth all the effort. Thanks NORCAL!  

One of the reasons the show was successful is because the flowers, the farmers and the programs were genuine. Nowadays consumers want genuine. Fun N Sun was a collection of the finest growers in California and each has a genuine story about how they have survived and thrived in this great but challenging industry. 

Another reason we like to attend these events is we have to periodically think outside of the box. I attended a presentation by J Schwanke where he lamented the fact that there might only be one carnation grower left in the USA.   

Later on that evening after a few drinks, J had me almost convinced that Kitayama Brothers should grow carnations again. “You were once the carnation kings!”  It is true, we once were the biggest carnation grower in the USA.   

It's so retro it might work. So if anyone actually reads this blog, let me know your thoughts. Does KB California grown carnations sound like a good idea?