by Joy Houston, photos by Jordan Banks

Guests gasp at dramatic arrangements of exotic tropical flowers that welcome them to fine hotels and restaurants in Guatemala City and La Antigua Guatemala. "They stop my pick-up when I make deliveries and ask where the flowers came from," says Marcel Roehrs. Roehrs is the proud owner of the Selva Maya flower farm in Escuintla. He raises more than 120 varieties of the unusual flowers and some 30 varieties of foliage for the arrangements.

Marcel Roehrs at his Selva Maya flower farm

Tropical flowers love water and do best with a lot of rain. But even they suffered in Hurricane Mitch in 1998, six months after he began cultivating them. "There were over two meters of standing water in the field. We found flowers as far as three miles down the road. It’s only because I’m so stubborn that we were able to continue with our flower business," laughs Roehrs. When he relocated his farm in 2003, he was careful to learn from past experience. "We worked hard at planning drainage, so that in Hurricane Stan there was only a brief moment when we had about a half inch of standing water."

Roehrs studied at the Panamerican Agricultural School (El Zamorano) in Honduras and earned a degree in agronomy from the University of Florida in 1981, following in his father’s footsteps. At first he farmed raspberries and blackberries in the highlands. When international regulations complicated those crops, he bought rhizomes of Heliconia flowers, shipped from Costa Rica and Ecuador. It was an expensive beginning, but the plants flourished and now provide the rhizomes to expand the crop. "We went looking for varieties native to Guatemala, in the Petén and Alta and Baja Verapáz. We need more than beauty. We need something that is not a pain in the neck to produce and that will last a least a week in your vase." Now the farm also buys seeds from Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Hawaii and the Ivory Coast of Africa. "We add varieties to ensure that, when one quits producing flowers, the other starts, to always have something for customers," Roehrs explains.

Depending on the type and variety, plants take six months to two years to produce. This month, in addition to local deliveries, the Selva Maya farm will again begin to export tropical flowers and foliage to distributors in Europe and the U.S., all by air transport, although Roehrs hopes to eventually send climate-controlled trucks through Mexico to Texas. His goal for 2006 is to ship 200 boxes per week year-round. Each waterproof packed box can weigh up to 65 lbs.

Harvesting and packing is a precise science. Cutting is done twice a week, selectively and carefully so plants are in constant renewal. The leaves are packaged in 10s or 12s, and the flat flowers stack well. "Every one has to be perfect and mature. Th e customer receives it just as it is picked," he says, explaining that, unlike other flowers, the exotic varieties do not open further after cutting. Orders are processed strictly by catalog name and even page number, so the customer gets exactly what he expects, right down to the length of the stem. In a walk through the fields, Roehrs names the flower varieties. "Here is a ‘Lobster Claw’; there’s a ‘Las Cruces’. Those are called ‘Strawberries and Cream’; these are called ‘Lady Di’," referring to a delicate variety developed by a British producer. Later he cuts a favorite of his own, a pink banana hybrid he developed and named ‘Katerina’, after his daughter.

There are no greenhouses in Selva Maya. The flower and foliage plants are placed according to the amount of natural shade. Colorful Heliconia varieties are pollinated by hummingbirds, different species of birds for specific species of flowers; all-green varieties are pollinated by bats.

Roehrs is as at home walking among plants taller than himself as a baker in a pastry shop. He tells of a couple of Russian doctors who visited Selva Maya who had started a flower business importing from Holland because practicing medicine in Russia does not pay well. "They said their friends would never believe the photos of them standing in the rows of high plants!" Roehrs says that initially he had to literally beg for buyers, "Please, please try them." Whereas in a shop in the U.S. or Europe, a single stem could cost $4-5, Roehrs says, "These flowers have not been taken seriously, so there are not a lot of competitors—but I love it that way!"

Contact: selvamaya2004@yahoo.com