A little more than a week before the 136th Tournament of Roses Parade, Bob Mellano was counting flowers and losing– 50,000 roses brief.
Mellano studied his documentation. A flower wholesaler in downtown Los Angeles, he can find inconsistencies from a range.
The night previously, 2 trucks from Miami had actually brought up to his packing dock with lots of pallets stacked with flower boxes. By the time his team unloaded them, he might see that he was at least 250 boxes brief– which consisted of the roses he particularly required, an acclaimed range called Hearts.
Bob Mellano is the third-generation owner of Mellano & Co. in Los Angeles.
(Allen J. Schaben/ Los Angeles Times)
Mellano, 62, hid his concern behind years of experience. Within a week, the drifts would be prepared for their flowers and comprising the distinction would not be simple or low-cost.
From his workplace on the 2nd flooring of the downtown Flower Market, Mellano stands in the middle of a worldwide supply chain that extends into nearly every continent and ends on New Year’s Day in Pasadena.
When others mention vacation tension, he just wants he had their tension. For as long as he can keep in mind, November and December have actually been a blur of 14-hour days, conferences and call, e-mails and texts, documentation and flooring work.
“Without the flowers,” he stated, “the Rose Parade is absolutely nothing.”
The 2025 Rose Parade includes 39 drifts, and Mellano is providing the flowers and foliage for 21.
Countless complete strangers, numerous customers and lots of workers rely on him. The ghosts of his household depend upon him: For 3 generations, Mellano & & Co. has actually played a crucial behind-the-scenes function in the Rose Parade.
For the record:
1:38 p.m. Dec. 31, 2024
An earlier variation of this story stated that Mellano & & Co. has actually played an important behind-the-scenes function in the Rose Parade for 2 generations. The business has actually contributed in the parade for 3 generations.
The story stated that 825 stems of lavender cushion chrysanthemums were purchased for the “Go Bowling” float. The appropriate variety of stems is 5,775.
The story likewise stated that Bob Mellano’s other half, Mary, raised their 4 children. The couple has 2 children and 2 kids.
Pacing the storage facility flooring, Mellano checked off products on the expense of lading.
Jose Gutierrez moves roses for different Rose Parade drifts at Mellano & Co. The blossoms are secured of the cooler, processed, cut and hydrated for shipment to Pasadena, where they will be utilized on the drifts.
(Allen J. Schaben/ Los Angeles Times )
In his organization, thin margins are made thinner by mechanical breakdowns, labor strikes, unpredictable growers, unpredictable airline companies, human mistake and severe weather condition. This year, it has actually been drizzling a lot in Colombia, where the majority of his roses originate from, and rain is dreadful for roses.
He examined the amounts for one float–“Go Bowling”– that needed 2,500 Hearts. Just 400 had actually shown up. The others were amongst the 50,000 missing out on roses.
Often he wanted he handled widgets. Widgets would be a lot simpler.
On the planet of Rose Parade float style, roses– naturally– are super stars.
While designers employ other flowers– together with seeds, bark, beans, coffee premises, anything to satisfy the guideline that every square inch of every float be covered with natural product– they value roses for their variety of color, their flexibility and toughness.
Amongst these stars, the Hearts increased frequently plays the lead. Its deep crimson color and complex blossom– a congested whorl of ruffled petals that coalesce in the center to form a heart– include an aspect of visual intrigue.
Bob Mellano holds a Hearts increased grown in Colombia.
(Allen J. Schaben/ Los Angeles Times)
“It’s a stunning rose, crimson, not black, simply an extremely, really crimson,”stated Scott Lamb, flower director for the float designer Artistic Entertainment Services.
Lamb has actually dealt with the Rose Parade for 52 years, embellishing drifts with the flowers that bring the fanciful tableaux and myriad menageries to life.
The bowling street that would be illustrated on the”Go Bowling “float, sponsored by the Bowling Proprietors’ Assn. of America, specifically interested him. Its mechanical components– the wobbling pins in specific– include a distinct dynamic.
John Harbuck, accountable for marketing the association, stated the direct exposure supplied by a Rose Parade float deserved a price “listed below the mid-six figures.”
In its preparation phases, a float is a mathematical formula, where X is the variety of flowers and Y is the square video to be covered. Lamb accumulated the order he would send out to Mellano.
500 stems of whaleback philodendron
5,775 stems of lavender cushion chrysanthemums
3,650 stems of sprengeri ferns
21,800 red and yellow carnations
And obviously, roses– lots and great deals of roses.
“The float yelled roses,” stated Lamb, determining 36,800 stems.
For a broad swath of the bowling lane and the location listed below the ball and falling pins, he picked the 2,500 Hearts, both long stems and brief. They would include texture and drama: Think Roy Lichtenstein’s “Whaam!”
A staff member picks the roses that are prepared for harvest in Guasca, Colombia.
(Ivan Valencia/ For The Times )
On a farm about 35 miles northeast of Bogotá, Hearts are grown in a greenhouse under thoroughly regulated conditions: a substrate of coconut peat fed by a hydroponic watering system in temperature levels balancing 59 degrees, at an elevation of 9,000 feet.
For all its charm, the range started as an error, when Dutch breeder Jan Spek Rozen found uncommon qualities that a regular increased presumed when grown on the Andean plateau.
Growers initially were dissatisfied with the chaotic flowers, the securely loaded petals more similar to a wild than a garden increased.
The Elite Flower, a provider, grows its Hearts roses in greenhouses in Guasca, Colombia.
(Ivan Valencia/ For The Times)
The ruffles discovered a market, and in 2009, Rozen patented Hearts, offering grafts to growers in Ecuador and Colombia, the only nations where the uncommon qualities might be attained.
For the Hearts on the “Go Bowling “float, Mellano got in touch with the Elite Flower, a global provider based in Colombia.
On Dec. 13, employees clipped the Hearts. At El Dorado International Airport, they were packed– in addition to 1,433 boxes of other flowers– onto Chilean airline company LATAM Flight L7-2813, bound for Miami.
The flower service utilized to be easier.
Throughout his youth on the household farm in Cerritos in the 1960s, Mellano provided California-grown flowers with his siblings and dad. He remembered, as a little kid, being overshadowed by the boxes.
The Rose Parade played a distinguished function in business that his grandpa began 100 years earlier. Giovanni Mellano emigrated from Italy and settled in Santa Cruz, earning a living in the beginning selling in your area gathered flower greens to markets in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Historic images of the household company are on display screen at Mellano & & Co. in Los Angeles. Giovanni Mellano is revealed with his children beside him.
(Allen J. Schaben/ Los Angeles Times)
He relocated to Los Angeles in 1925 and developed Mellano & Co. in the Flower Market downtown. On 6 acres amongst the dairy farms of southeast L.A., he grew ferns, myrtle and eucalyptus.
The household opened a 2nd farm in Artesia for daffodils and daisies, before the rural sprawl pressed them out. In 1972, the Mellanos relocated to Oceanside, where they still own 400 acres for asters, waxflowers, alstroemeria, delphiniums and foliage.
Drift styles and flower orders when was available in as early as July, offering regional growers time to plant what would be required in 6 months. The rate of land and labor pressed lots of domestic growers out of company, requiring flower providers to turn to abroad markets.
Bob Mellano, from left, Panfilo Maldonado and Juan Aleman procedure boxes of Hearts roses from Colombia, which are secured of the cooler, processed, cut and hydrated for shipment to Pasadena, where they will be put on the “Go Bowling”float.
(Allen J. Schaben/ Los Angeles Times )
Today, roses offered in the U.S. are practically solely grown in Colombia and Ecuador. Unique flowers, such as orchids, originated from Hawaii or Thailand. Other nations– Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, South Africa, Kenya, Japan, Singapore, Costa Rica, Peru– are important sources.
As the Rose Parade has actually grown from a regional to a nationwide brand name, sponsors take more time before devoting to a float, pondering expenses, messaging and exposure. This year, among Mellano’s orders got here Dec. 16, leaving little space for mistake.
A lot of Hearts roses newly gathered in Colombia. The range started as an error, when Dutch breeder Jan Spek Rozen found uncommon characteristics that a common increased presumed when grown on the Andean plateau.
(Ivan Valencia/ For The Times)
At a cooled storage facility at the Miami airport, Customs and Border Protection authorities opened each box of Hearts, unwrapped the flowers and shook and banged them to see whether any undesirable pests fell out.
Days later on, on Dec. 19 at a freezer center west of the airport, employees from Armellini Logistics arranged, combined, palletized, staged and filled the flowers into 2 53-foot cooled trailers.
Mellano chooses shipping overland for $8 a box; by air, it’s $43.
On Dec. 21, 2024, trucks pull into Mellano & Co. on Wall Street in downtown Los Angeles.
(Bob Mellano)
The trucks left 4 hours apart, and the & motorists settled in for the 39-hour, 2,700-mile journey to Los Angeles on Interstate 10.
On Dec. 21 at 7 p.m., the very first truck pulled its brakes at Mellano & Co. on Wall Street. The 2nd truck got here closer to midnight.
Mellano got up at 2 a.m., silently so regarding not interrupt his spouse, Mary. He credits her for making all this possible, raising their 4 kids and comprehending the needs of a regular that keeps him hectic from the winter season vacations through the Lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day and Easter.
He imagined playing expert baseball however provided it as much as deal with his daddy and uncles. With his kids withdrawn in business, he questions what will end up being of the household’s financial investment in flowers.
Driving in from Fullerton, he was at the workplace by 3:30 a.m. After finding that the 2,100 short-stemmed Hearts were missing, he called Elite.
< img alt ="A man in a gray jacket leans down toward a rack full of red roses in buckets and red wrapping" width="2000" height="1333" src ="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e1cb829/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/2000x1333!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc3%2F07%2F078e49694ee486623f93f33478fb%2F1488161-me-roses-journey-to-parade-38-ajs.jpg" decoding="async" loading ="lazy">
Bob Mellano processes packages of Rose Parade Hearts roses from Colombia.
(Allen J. Schaben/ Los Angeles Times)
The scarcity, he was informed, was an inconsistency in the documents. The remainder of the roses would land in Miami the next day and remain in Los Angeles on Thursday, the day after Christmas.
He was barely guaranteed. The clock was diminishing.
When the 3rd Armellini truck pulled into the packing dock, on Thursday as assured, Mellano was waiting. The 14 boxes of Hearts existed, as were the other 48,000 missing out on roses.
Mellano’s team, worn business sweatshirts and caps, started preparing the flowers for shipment to the structure in Pasadena where volunteers embellish the drifts.
As a corrido played in the background, Panfilo Maldonado and Juan Aleman worked quietly, effectively, opening boxes, spilling packages over a long table, removing out the cellophane. Aleman put the roses on a conveyor belt, advancing them to a rotary saw that cut their stems.
Four-gallon pails filled with water laced with sugar and bacteriacides were prepared to get the newly cut flowers. As soon as in the water, the blooms– inactive now for 2 weeks– started to refresh.
Nicholas St. Clair, lead flower designer, positions a Hearts increased on the “Go Bowling” float in Pasadena.
( Jason Armond/ Los Angeles Times)
By Sunday night, the Hearts had actually been being in their containers for 2 days in a breezy camping tent simply south of the Rose Bowl.
Close by in the Rosemont Pavilion, the”Go Bowling” float loomed together with 16 other fantastical developments: chipmunks sharing an acorn, the Little Tramp dancing with his woman, B.B. King striking blue notes on Lucille.
Nicholas St. Clair,”Go Bowling’s “lead flower designer, brought the Hearts to the front of the bowling street, its base half covered with sprengeri ferns.
Bob Mellano, Nicholas St. Clair and Scott Lamb with the “Go Bowling” float.
(Jason Armond/ Los Angeles Times)
Lamb viewed as St. Clair cut the stem of each Heart at a 45-degree angle and included them to a luxurious plan of brighter red roses, bird of paradise leaves, palm fans, steel lawn and red dogwood.
Mellano and better half Mary stood close by. He was still on call to field any last-minute demands, however the crush of the recently was relieving. He surveyed the congested storage facility, appreciating productions that had actually when existed just on paper.
“Nothing compares to the Rose Parade when you see those drifts boiling down Colorado Boulevard,” he stated.
On New Year’s Day, however, after numerous sleep deprived nights, he’ll enjoy the parade on tv in your home.
Scott Lamb, flower director for Artistic Entertainment Services, the business that developed the “Go Bowling” float. He has actually dealt with the Rose Parade for 52 years.
(Jason Armond/ Los Angeles Times)
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