Flower Market in Los Angeles and California

Los Angeles county is the sixth top producer of flowers and nursery products in California. San Diego is the top county in California, and in fact, it leads all the counties in the entire United States. They produce five times as much as Los Angeles county.

There are about 3,800 retailers in California whose key products are nursery and/or floral products. But this doesn't include an additional 3,500 incidental retailers who have multiple product lines including floral products. These include Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target and the supermarket chains.

Total retail florist sales in California will likely be at least 1.2 billion dollars this year. (Actual figures for 2001 were $988 million).

Of all the flowers produced in California, about forty percent are shipped to other States and less than one percent are exported to other countries.

The U.S. as a whole now imports three quarters of all cut flowers consumed. The two main exporters of cut flowers into the United States are Columbia and Ecuador.

Source: These are 2002 industry numbers from an informative profile by Hoy Carman.

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The above fine art print is 'Valley Of Sunflowers' by Richard Leblanc