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Florists are cultivating all types of consumers, but they are especially encouraging women, who are used to receiving flowers, to give them to men. FTD created TV commercials in which Merlin Olsen, a former Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle, talks about the joys of receiving bouquets. Florists say Olsen's macho image helps get across the idea that real men like posies. Says Kristi Stevens, who runs a Brentwood, Calif., shop called the Flowers That Bloom in the Spring Tra-La: "We're seeing women sending flowers to men to thank them for a date."
Demand for exotic foreign flowers is also budding. They accounted for an estimated $240 million in sales during 1985. The most popular source is the Netherlands, which exports about $100 million worth of tulips, freesias, lilies, alstroemerias and other varieties to the U.S. each year. Colombia and Israel are also major suppliers. From Hawaii and the Caribbean come tropical strains such as orchids, heliconias, proteas and banana flowers.
A well-oiled distribution network guarantees that even varieties from far- flung places are on store shelves within 24 to 72 hours after picking. Armando Goenaga, president of the South Flower Market in Manhattan, employs people who buy flowers at a weekly auction in Aalsmeer, the Netherlands. The produce is packed the day of the auction and flown out on a KLM freight jet that night. The plane flies nonstop to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, and the flowers are transported in refrigerated trucks to South's warehouse. The next morning at 6 the flowers are trucked to South's stores, where workers cut the stems and put them on display.
The flower-distribution pipelines will be particularly busy this week. In addition to all the new reasons people have for buying bouquets, flowers are still a classy way to profess true love.