If a poinsettia is a holiday tradition in your home, chances are it came from Clarington’s Rekker’s Garden Centre.

The local greenhouse grows 150,000 poinsettias in Bowmanville each year, and ships them Costco and Canadian Tire stores across the province. Rekker’s poinsettias sell in retail stores across southeast Ontario, from Ottawa to Mississauga and up north to Barrie and Lindsay. The poinsettias are also sold in the retail store of the Rekker’s Garden Centre in Bowmanville and as holiday fundraisers for schools and sports teams.

“We don’t want to do more; we could do more. It’s one of those products that has to be gone by mid-December. You don’t want to overgrow,” said Gerard Prins, owner of Rekker’s Garden Inc.

Rekker’s greenhouses have been growing poinsettias for more than 55 years. The plant is a stable holiday crop year after year, although there are changing trends. Lately, larger sized poinsettias and mixed planters are popular.

“What has taken off are mixed planters, poinsettia with an assortment of other tropical plants,” said Prins.

Large retailers pre-book their poinsettia orders from Rekker’s. Costco and Canadian Tire have estimates of how many plants they want by early February so the Bowmanville greenhouse can start the cuttings stage.

“Nobody wants a poinsettia after Christmas, because we know our numbers it’s not a problem,” said Prins.

By late November, poinsettia plants stretched as far as the eye could see in room after room of the Rekker’s greenhouses.

Most are grown at the Rekker’s greenhouses on Highway 2 at Maple Grove Road, and a quarter are planted at the second Rekker’s property on Concession Road 4 in north Bowmanville. The red and green holiday plants stood in long rows, sharply contrasting with the opaque white walls of the greenhouse. Most of the poinsettias are red (85 per cent) but Rekker’s also grows white and pink poinsettias.

“They are not really tricky to grow. They need the right amount of light and darkness. The darkness triggers them into colour,” said Prins. “More than 12 hours of darkness triggers them.”

Shorter days in September trigger the poinsettias and the colour starts to be visible at the end of October. From mid-November on, the poinsettias are in peak colour and ready to be shipped. The plants stay in top form until the new year.

“We start shipping them in mid-November,” said Prins.

The poinsettias ship on large rolling racks for major retailers such as Costco. Rekker’s also packs the plants into boxes to ship to fundraising customers.

The poinsettia business at Rekker’s employs 25 people in wholesale, between 10 to 12 packers, and five truckers to make the deliveries.

The greenhouse runs a week ahead of the retailers, which means by Dec. 18 the poinsettias have shipped out of Bowmanville.

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The greenhouse staff get a break over Christmas, then in January they hit the ground running to pot up the spring bulbs and plants.

“There’s not a lot of crops at Christmas you can grow. As wholesalers, it’s a crop everybody wants at Christmas,” said Prins. “It keeps us going from spring crop, to summer crop to Christmas crop. It helps to keep the greenhouse rolling year-round.”

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