Jill & Pedro's Hydro Roses officially opens

Last week the glazed glass arrived from the New York factory, so the workmen have been working in a feverish frenzy to finish for our grand opening yesterday, April 4th!

I knew that Pedro wanted the three huge glasshouses finished in time for his birthday, and they were—in the nick of time. Pedro was born on April 4th. He’s a fiery Aries, someone who is passionate about life and is very actively accomplishing his goals.

He was disappointed that his parents could not come to the opening from Mallorca, due to ill health, but his brother and three cousins were here and congratulated us on our new enterprise.

His brother is due to take over the Mallorca greenhouses, so he toured our facilities with great interest. It seems that their operation in Spain isn’t as automated as our state-of-the-art rose growing facilities here in Mississauga.

Every aspect of our rose production is computer-controlled. A light sensor measures the lumens and the micromoles per meter and adjusts the bank of HID lights accordingly. During the summer, if the sun gets too hot midday, the computer will close built in shades over the glazed glass, to keep our roses from burning.

Our banks of lights operate on tracks, so they can be pulled to the side when not needed. In the winter, three large water boilers take care of heating our greenhouses through an intricate system of radiator pipes. Hot and cold water pipes also run under our ebb and flow hydroponic system reservoirs, to make sure that the nutrient solution is at an optimum temperature at all times.

We also have a superb ventilation system built into each greenhouse, with the option to switch over to air conditioning if global warming gets any worse and such intense cooling is required. Right now these huge, super quiet in-line fans handle the cooling, bringing in (hopefully) cooler air from the outside and getting rid of stale air from inside our greenhouses.

Instead of heat-producing, propane-burning CO2 generators, we made a deal with a company to provide compressed CO2 in large, metal cylinders equipped with timers that release just the right parts per million into the greenhouse air, that matches the ppm of our nutrient solution.

We took delivery of our first large shipment of Hybrid Tea Roses grafted onto disease resistant rootstocks. In glasshouse A, nicknamed Blue Rose, we will be growing Blue Girl and Julia’s Rose. In glasshouse B, Red Rose, we’ll be growing nothing but Alec’s Red. In Glasshouse C, Multi Rose, we have started growing Granada and Ambience.

It will take a few days to have the operation jump into high gear. We have hired some expert technicians and horticulturalists, who take pride in their work and in our goals of producing the most beautiful, fragrant, marketable roses in Mississauga.

Each glasshouse measures 125 feet by 40 feet, giving us 6000 square feet of workspace. A thousand of that is taken up by the processing room and all the equipment, so 5000 square feet is covered with a 2000-bucket hydroponic system. Each rose bush will occupy 2.25 square feet, leaving room for aisles between the ebb and flow tables.

Our bucket system is adjustable. Pedro was worried that some of the plants might get bushier so they will perhaps need more than the 2.25 square feet allotted at present. We’ll just remove a bucket here, a bucket there, and allow for the individuality in size. But the bigger bushes better produce many more marketable blooms, or else!

There was a big delivery from Advanced Nutrients, with a truckload of products designed to feed our roses the best organic nutrients available in today’s market. Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom will be our base fertilizer, augmented by Organic B, the purest, most effective B vitamin available, and the three Grandma Enggy products that made Pedro swear that Grandma Enggy was Spanish.

Her Humic Acid, Fulvic Acid, and Seaweed Extract arrived in large containers, and will be added to every new batch of nutrient solution that we mix up for our three reservoirs. Pedro couldn’t make up his mind between Carbo Load Liquid or Powder, so he looked both of them up in the Advancedpedia.

“They’re identical in what they do, but the Liquid is easier to use and it dissolves quicker, so we’ll buy that, even though it’s more expensive,” said my fifty-fifty business partner and I hardly had a say in the matter.

“Carbo Load will ensure that our rose plants will have an adequate supply of carbohydrates for the flower building stage, when the size of the blooms are determined by the plants,” explained Pedro, when he saw that I wasn’t too pleased with his arbitrary decision.

“Don’t the plants produce sugars on their own?” I asked naively. “Yes, but through photosynthesis it’s a time consuming process. It takes six molecules of water coupled with six molecules of carbon dioxide, to produce only one molecule of sugar and six molecules of oxygen. So you see our roses will need a boost when they’re ready to bloom.”

I smiled and gave in, just like I agreed to the glazed glass, instead of plastic cover for our greenhouses. Pedro has so much passion that his enthusiasm is contagious. I also read on the Advanced Nutrients website that Carbo Load helps nourish the beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes in Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice. We just received a huge supply of these root colonizers.

“Don’t forget to use these half strength,” I reminded Pedro, who has been writing enthusiastic e-mails back to Spain about all the wonderful Advanced Nutrients products that have produced such outstanding results for some of the rose growers in Mississauga that we have visited.

I forgot to mention that we’ve done the rounds of rose growers in the area, hoping to get pointers about local market conditions and horticultural tips from people who have been growing roses for a long time. Most of them were impressed with our plans and were keen to hear all about the Advanced Nutrients products that we’re planning to use.

This all happened so fast that my head is spinning, but I consider myself lucky to have met such a wonderful man who shares my passion for growing and selling beautiful flowers.