There’s a jolt when you look over thousands of poinsettias, a sea of what appears to be red velvet with a sprinkling of pinks and other colors. Some poinsettias are boutique varieties with bracts of pink, or cream and coral pink, even a light soft green.

    Sea of poinsettias: Rotary Club tours Do Right’s Plant Nursery

    December 06, 2013
    By Peggy Kelly
    Santa Paula News

    By Peggy Kelly 

    Santa Paula Times 

    There’s a jolt when you look over thousands of poinsettias, a sea of what appears to be red velvet with a sprinkling of pinks and other colors.

    Such a sight was an opportunity afforded to members of the Santa Paula Rotary Club when Rotarian Dudley Davis and his wife and business partner Dianne Davis hosted the club at their Do Right’s Plant Growers where they offered a tour of their poinsettia growing operation.

    The 30-acre Do Right’s, located at the corner of Briggs and West Telegraph roads, has been in business for nearly four decades, for more than a decade at the current location supplying retailers with various annuals, perennials, vegetables and herbs.

    Poinsettias, Dudley told the visitors, “Is the only in-house plant we grow,” and one that this year is about 82,000 plants strong.

    Although for several years poinsettias have been strong and profitable, “They’re problematic to grow and,” noted Dudley, “each mistake can be the last one,” including up to the very end of the growing cycle when whitefly can decimate the crop.

    The size of this year’s crop was limited by greenhouse space and Dudley said other growers could produce up to 1 million plants.

    Those growers, “Sell to brokers, we sell direct to retailers,” from the Mexican border to Las Vegas and many points in between.

    Dianne Davis said poinsettias, fed by drip lines under carefully monitored light, can be “tricked” for later blooming to keep the supply perky up to Christmas. 

    Do Right’s receives the poinsettias as snips that are potted for growth and set above ground level to avoid contact with surface water.

    Some pots are much higher: “We get more dollars per square foot by hanging some in the air,” joked Dianne about suspended pots of poinsettias, like the others due to be delivered to retailers in a matter of weeks.

    Some poinsettias are boutique varieties with bracts of pink, or cream and coral pink, even a light soft green. One variety is Ice Crystal, still being perfected to get a strong crop of plants with bracts that are cream down the middle that shimmer in varying shades of pink or red.

    Indigenous to Mexico and Central America and particularly famed for its red and green foliage widely used in Christmas floral displays, no doubt Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States Minister to Mexico, would be delighted to see what has come of the plant he introduced into the USA in 1825. 

    The poinsettia has been a staple in Ventura County since the 1890s when Theodosia Burr Shepherd helped put California on the map for commercial flower producing by growing and shipping poinsettias and other flowers.

    Today, the poinsettia is considered among the best-selling potted plants, with annual sales estimated this year to be at about $300 million nationwide. Although they require much care from post holiday owners, many homes sport poinsettias that are as tall as 6-feet, remnants of holidays’ past that found a happy home planted outside.

    Poinsettias are only about 5 percent of Do Right’s annual business but a welcome one for slower winter months. Visitors were also able to see the process of creating Mother’s Thyme, automatically planted in petite pots or by hand in an assembly line of some of the company’s approximately 80 employees. 

    Dianne Davis is the founder of the Santa Paula Chapter of America in Bloom; in June Do Right’s was recognized as the Small Business of the Year by 37th District Assemblymember Das Williams, just one of the many honors bestowed on the Davis’ and their business.





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