The company

Tesselaar Alstroemeria entered the world of flowers in 1977. After a few years of growing carnations and lilly's amongst others, freesia's became our core business. In 1985 a start was made with the cultivation of alstroemeria's. These days, these are the only flowers grown in our greenhouses. A crew of fourty takes care of our high-quality product in the three adjecent greenhouses that make up the Tesselaar Alstroemeria company.

The plant

Alstroemeria's grow on a horizontally expanding base-root. Branches grow out of this root wich grow towards the sunlight to finally form multiple flowers. Because the root keeps expanding, an alstroemeria-flowerbed can produce flowers and sustain itself for many years. Therfore it's not the actual lifespan, but the economical lifespan of the plant that makes us replace it. When the production reach a certain low, More can be gained by starting over with new base-material. Also worth mentioning are the Alstroemeria's leaves, wich are turned. Also, the stem is unable to branch out.
Workflow

The alstroemeria-plant can produce flowers on a daily basis for many years. Therefore one of our concerns has always been to safeguard the quality of the flowerbeds by using slim harvesting-carts that use heatpipes as rails. Rubber wrappers are used to avoid bruising the flower's leaves during transport to the bundling section where the alstroemeria's are processed and prepared for auctioning.
A constant high quality is guaranteed by our Florimark certification. This mean we are regularly checked for growing flowers with highest regards to the environment, the people around us and quality. Florimark also monitors flowertraders, wich means they have their eye on every step the alstroemeria takes to reach the customer. More detailed information can be found on:

www.florimark.nl

Breeding

Tesselaar also breeds new alstroemeria-species that can hopefully make a contribution to the current assortment; species with vivid colours and heavy stems. Another goal is to make them resistent to harmfull insects, in order to minimize necessity to use chemicals. Alstroemeria-species made in the Tesselaar-laboratory are distributed by our tradepartner Hilverda (www.hilverda.nl).

Alstroemeria origin

Alstroemeria's get their name from Swedish law-scientist Carl Alstroemer (1736 - 1794), aprentice to Linnaeus. Alstroemer told Linnaeus that plants called 'Inca-lilly' were grown in the garden of the Swedish consul. Apart from being of mayor influence in the farming community of Sweden, Alstroemer also travelled to South-America for research. It was in this period (1753) that he sent some seeds to Linnaeus. Appearantly, the 'Inca-lilly' prospered at high altitude and with at least twelve hours of sunlight each day.

User-tips

To enjoy your Alstroemeria's as long as possible, no special treatment is neccesary. Just cut of the stems under an angle, use a clean vase and fill it with clean water. This guarantees a long life as long as you make sure the product is bought fully grown. The colour of the flower should be evident. The flower wil take some time to open up, but it will last really long. To make the alstroemeria's last even longer, special cutflower-nourishment can be added to the water. Keep the water clean and refill with a nourishment-solution to really max out the lifespan of your alstro's. Also remember never to place cutflowers next to fruit. Fruit produces a gas that ages the flowers unnaturally. This gas is also produced by the Alstroemeria itself. This means that when a lot of cutflowers are kramped together, enough venitilation is requiered.

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