THIS IS NO ORDINARY PLANT

Yucca flowers develop on extremely tall stalks (that look like asparagus) in masses of white and cream

By Tom Castronovo Executive Editor/Publisher Gardener News

Once a year (more or less) healthy yucca plants send up a tall, sturdy stalk topped with billows of fragrant, bell- shaped flowers.

Many yucca plants wait until early summer when temperatures are warm enough in order to bloom, and it’s possible to have two blooms in the same year even if the first doesn’t come until mid-summer.

The statewide average temperature of 59.3° was 1.9° below (Cont. on Page 22)

Over the years I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet a few of the United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA NASS) officials. It all started with Troy Joshua, then it was King Whetstone, and finally Bruce Eklund.

I look forward to meeting Charles Walker the next time I’m in New York. NASS is the federal statistical agency responsible for producing official data about U.S. agriculture and is committed to providing timely, accurate and useful statistics in service to U.S. agriculture. I’ve learned a lot from these guys.

From time to time I share some statistics that are produced by USDA NASS in Gardener News.

This month I am sharing some statistics from the Commercial Floriculture Survey, which provides the number of growers, area of production, quantity sold, prices, value of sales for floriculture commodities, and average number of agricultural workers per farm or ranch.

This survey is a census of over 10,000 commercial floriculture operations that annually produce and sell at least $10,000 of fresh cut flowers, potted flowering plants, foliage plants, annual bedding and garden plants, potted herbaceous perennials, cut cultivated florist greens, and propagative (unfinished) floriculture material. Annual sales include wholesale and retail sales of items surveyed.

A data series for five cut flowers began in 1956 in five states, and today the survey covers six floriculture categories plus propagative material for each category in all 50 states. The 28 main producing states are published individually.

Here is a short summary of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania that was released on May 26, 2023 for 2022.

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