How two generations have kept this family flower farm in bloom

Rosa Flora didn’t become one of Canada’s largest cut-flower producers by doing what’s easy.

In an industry under pressure from rising labour and energy costs, low-priced international competitors and now 50-per-cent tariffs on Canadian flower exports to the United States, the two-generation family operation in Southern Ontario sees its ability to adapt and to grow demanding products as central to its future.

The company in Dunnville, 60 kilometres south of Hamilton, employs about 200 people and produces millions of stems annually for floral wholesalers across North America. With 60 per cent to 70 per cent of Rosa Flora’s flowers shipped to the U.S., a substantial portion of its enterprise is exposed in the trade war.

“It’s the hard products that maybe somebody else has a difficult time growing and shipping that we actually excel at,” says Ralph DeBoer, 54, who with his wife Arielle DeBoer, 49, owns the 55-acre business.

Ms. DeBoer’s parents Otto and Corine Bulk started Rosa Flora in 1978 with a single greenhouse of hybrid tea roses after immigrating to Canada from Aalsmeer, a Dutch flower-growing town where Mr. Bulk’s family had run nurseries.

“But we could only sell so many roses” from Ontario, Mr. Bulk says. As lower-cost producers in countries such as Colombia and Ecuador transformed the global market, Rosa Flora expanded into other crops including gerbera, snapdragons and lisianthus.

Canadian growers face very different economics than many of their international rivals. “We’re not necessarily the lowest-cost jurisdiction,” Mr. DeBoer says. Instead of competing on price, Rosa Flora has built its business around crops and customers where quality, consistency and speed matter most.

The company moves flowers, often in water, quickly across the continent with its fleet of 35 climate-controlled trucks, maintaining an unbroken cold chain from its coolers to customers. That has become part of Rosa Flora’s differentiator for a crop where freshness, handling and shelf life are key.

With the approach of winter, when heating and lighting expenses rise, tariffs have eroded Rosa Flora’s competitive position in the U.S. and reduced profitability, Ms. DeBoer says.

But the company has no intention of willingly giving up market share.

It regularly updates customers on the evolving situation and has introduced what Ms. DeBoer describes as a small fee increase. She says clients have responded positively and continue to value Rosa Flora’s product quality, personal service and quick, accurate order turnaround.

The business is assessing government support programs, though Ms. DeBoer says a broader solution depends on Canada and the U.S. returning to the negotiating table.

To mitigate its significant energy expenses, Rosa Flora has invested in renewable energy including biomass heating systems that use clean waste wood, much of it from construction, as well as in automation and supplemental LED lighting.

Labour is also costly, making productivity a constant focus. Rosa Flora measures everything from stems produced per hour to labour hours per stem, while relying on seasonal worker programs, automation and technology to improve efficiency.

Having many of the same seasonal employees return each year has helped provide stability, Ms. DeBoer says, while equipment such as seeding and plug-sorting machines has improved speed, accuracy and crop quality.

Like many agricultural businesses, Rosa Flora must also absorb rising input costs, which Ms. DeBoer says the company manages by buying in volume and working with preferred suppliers.

The company’s adaptability was tested dramatically in 2014, when a fire destroyed roughly half the operation. Rosa Flora was rebuilt and back at full capacity within two years. “We’re a stronger business today for it,” Mr. DeBoer says of the fire.

Andrea De Groot, an adviser who specializes in farm transitions with financial-services corporation Farm Credit Canada, says that kind of resilience is common among multigenerational agricultural operations. “Most of the pressures facing farmers today are not completely new,” she says. While trade tensions and input costs continue to fluctuate, she notes that Canadian agriculture has grown steadily over the past 15 to 20 years.

That includes the greenhouse sector. According to Statistics Canada, sales at greenhouse, nursery and floriculture operations reached $6.5-billion in 2025, up 7.5 per cent from the previous year, a fifth consecutive annual increase.

Within that context, the DeBoers say Rosa Flora’s growth depends on continuing to adapt while focusing on crops that are harder to grow – such as the Luxe Lisianthus collection it introduced last year – and flowers that ship and handle well.

“We’ve taken the same principles my parents followed and built on them,” says Ms. DeBoer, who grew up working in the business alongside her five siblings. “Size is really the only way we’ve changed.”

The transition to the second generation unfolded over roughly a decade. The DeBoers bought the company from the founders over time, initially alongside Ms. DeBoer’s brother Joshua. He later exited during a difficult market period to pursue other opportunities. Her other siblings developed careers outside the business. Mr. Bulk, now 75, has stepped back from day-to-day operations, though he still visits the farm regularly.

Like Ms. DeBoer, her husband also grew up on a farm. The couple says that even with agriculture’s pressures and unpredictability, the rhythms of rural life were part of the appeal of continuing the company while raising their own family.

The next question is whether a third generation will eventually take it on. The DeBoers’ four children have all spent time in the business but are weighing their own paths as they finish high school and postsecondary education.

“As we get older, we start to think about what’s next,” Ms. DeBoer says. “That hope is always there” for her children to take over Rosa Flora, “but we’re realistic” that they may have other ideas.

In farming, where work and home life often overlap, succession is never simply a business decision. “We live here and we work here but that’s not for everybody,” Mr. DeBoer says. “It’s a lifestyle choice.”