During the summer of 2003 in partnership with Greenmount College for Horticulture and Agriculture, we experimented in growing stock as a commercial cut flower. After successful trials, Greenisland flowers was formed in 2004. In 2004 we won an order from Finlays flowers/Marks & Spencer to supply stocks into the North of England and also the whole of there Scottish stores. In 2004 we extended the st
ock season with high quality stocks until the middle of August. The stock season would normally hit trouble during the very hot months of July and august but here at Greenisland flowers we coped very well with this troublesome time of the year. In 2005 we sat down again to programme our season and discovered that traditionally there is a gap in the month of June. This occurs because of the short gap between the first and second crop of stocks. In 2005 we programmed to cover this gap and also to extend the stock season until the second week of September.
2005 was a major success with the sales of stocks reaching a record 12% high over previous years. We covered the June gap and also extended the stocks season until the 15th September with high quality stocks, which had on average a shelf life of 9-10 days. In 2006 we ran with the same programme as 2005 but wanted to see if we could extend the stock further without reducing the shelf life of the product. During this year we pushed the boundaries for high quality stock production by producing stocks into the month of October for the very first time. We classed this as a success with no quality issues being reported. In 2006 we built a new state of art cut flower packing and storage facility with the help of DARD and Invest NI. This new packing and storage facility will help us get the flowers packed to an even higher standard, give the employees a better working environment and also make the process of preparing and storing the flowers a lot easier and efficient. From 2006 to 2013 we have added Lidl, Sainsburys, Asda, Tesco and PH Smith to our customer list. During this time we have expanded into oriental lily, peony rose and sweet william cut flower production. In 2012 we built a new state of art block of glass for winter production of Oriental lilies. Now we can produce cut flowers all year round
