Rare flower sees business bloom

One of the world's pioneers in breeding new hybrids of heliconia flowers can be found in his greenhouse at Pipiwai, west of Whangarei.

Herman Jongkind works with his son Jacob, 29, in the subtropical temperatures favoured by these stunning plants that are originally from South America.

The bright red flowers, also known as lobster claws, are highly sought after by florists and corporate clients for dramatic floral arrangements that last for weeks.

Heliconias are related to bananas and gingers and are notoriously difficult to breed.

Heliconia stricta ‘Pacific Fire' and ‘Pacific Rainbow' varieties are patented by Herman and his wife, Tilda, who is a partner in the business, Jongkind Heliconias.

The hybrids were such a rare feat that Herman said other breeders around the world wouldn't believe him at first. MPI also wouldn't believe that he hadn't imported some rare varieties illegally.

"But it was down to years of hard work, figuring out the quite specific requirements of these flowers and trying to create the conditions they needed.

"There was a lot of trial and error, and eventually we had some success."

Herman, originally from the Netherlands, comes from a long family tradition of growing flowers. His father started to grow heliconias when he inherited a plant from another grower who had never managed to get it to flower.

He managed to produce 60 flower stems which fetched a "ridiculously high price at auction".

When Herman, Tilda and their large family moved to New Zealand in 1998, he brought some seeds with him.

"I knew they were importing the flowers here and I hoped to find a market for locally grown flowers. It's also a bit easier to grow them because it is warmer here but the sun is pretty harsh in the summer," he said.

Heliconias have a long list of specific requirements, requiring Herman and Jacob to be ever-vigilant.

They like to be kept "not too hot, not too cold" and require high humidity and temperatures at least 18 degrees Celsius. Feed requirements require careful calculations to make sure they thrive. Parasitic wasps and predatory mites are used to help control aphids and mites.

In the regions of Central and South America, they are pollinated by hummingbirds.

"This makes it a bit of a challenge as there are no hummingbirds here so we had to do all the hybridising by hand," Herman said, showing a syringe with a delicate curved, hummingbird beak-shaped tip.

There were many failures over many years, until finally deep blue berries were produced.

"It is so complex, and at first we didn't know how it had worked. We came to understand that the plants fill their bracts with a watery fluid to protect the seeds from ants. Some can only be pollinated when the nectar has been taken out of the flower, as it would if it had been visited by a hummingbird.

"We would remove the liquid and it turned out that the ants were helping us too," he said.

Patience is needed, with seeds taking two years to germinate and between one and two years to flower.

The results turned out to be stunning and a colourful reward for all the efforts involved.

Sharing the greenhouse is a tropical ginger, Alpinia Purpurata, which has stunning brightly coloured flowers and is from the same family as well.

The business is slowly recovering after the Covid-19 lockdowns when at times they feared it would be the end.

"All of the high-end restaurants and hotels were closed to tourists so they didn't need flowers any more. The banana crops we also grow on the property as a sideline suddenly became our main way to keep busy," Herman said.

Jacob has worked with his father for the past 11 years, helping in the greenhouse but also handling marketing and shipping.

Regular deliveries are sent to florists and the flower markets in Auckland several times a week, as demand is slowly starting to return. They also now sell through supermarkets.

The flower stems are cut to 80cm lengths and sold in bunches of five in a sleeve.

"They are two-dimensional and the bracts are robust and not subject to damage from bruising so they are pretty easy to pack," Jacob said.

He said two people were needed so that someone was always on site to make sure the 2250sq m greenhouse was kept at a consistent temperature.

"If the burner failed, for example, and temperatures dropped we could lose the entire crop," Jacob said.