Talmadge Coley, CEO of the Florida Grower and Landscape Association, joins FOX Weather to talk about what agricultural consumers will see this year after Florida experienced three cyclone landfalls this season. Coley said Hurricane Milton left a large swath of damage across Florida impacting a wide range of crops, including popular holiday plants like Poinsettias
Christmas could look different this year after Florida’s nursery and landscape industry suffered widespread losses during hurricanes Helene and Milton. These losses included vibrant holiday plants such as poinsettias.
According to the Florida Nursery, Growers & Landscape Association (FNGLA), the Sunshine State’s $31 billion environmental horticulture industry is part of what makes it a lush tropical paradise.
Growers across the state experienced back-to-back major hurricanes this season, wiping out crops and causing damage to infrastructure and farming equipment. According to FNGLA CEO Tal Coley, this hurricane season dealt a major blow to the nursery farmers of Florida.
Hurricane Milton’s outer bands spun up tornadoes, causing damage in South Florida, hundreds of miles from where the storm made landfall as a Category 3 cyclone near Siesta Key on Florida’s west coast.
Storm conditions during Hurricane Milton slammed the greenhouses at Brad’s Bedding Plants in Delray Beach, Florida.
(Brad Bethurem / FOX Weather)
“I think what we will notice about this storm – every storm’s unique, as everyone will say down here – is the large swath of damage across the peninsula of Florida … Lots of damage in Sarasota, Bradenton, all the way up to north of Orlando and Apopka,” Coley said. “Surprisingly, all the way down to Palm Beach County, Loxahatchee area with a lot of the tornadoes that spun off this storm.”
Winds over 100 mph knocked over crops and trees in western and central Florida, toppling greenhouse enclosures and ripping down fencing at Ralph Taylor’s Nurseries in Bradenton.
Flooding rains left some nurseries underwater, like Atchison Exotics in Venice. Atchison’s has another location in Delray Beach on the east coast, which also suffered tornado damage. Owner Mike Atchison said winds took down century-old oak trees.
What once stood on solid ground at Atchison Exotics is now surrounded by standing water in the wake of Hurricane Milton.
(Mike Atchison / FOX Weather)
“It’s a triangle of destruction for our industry because we’re in every area in the state and really impacted a lot of people,” Coley said.
In Florida, nearly 270,000 people work in the nursery and landscaping industry, according to FNGLA.
As the holiday season approaches, consumers will also notice impacts from Helene and Milton through plant shortages.
“We are going to see shortages. We do grow a lot of poinsettias down here. You know, I would expect those shortages to be mainly in the Southeast, especially here in the state of Florida,” Coley said. “It will impact your Christmas plants as well as other plants.”
Floridians have become resilient in the wake of many damaging hurricane seasons. Still, Coley said he expects the full recovery for the Florida agriculture industry to take time.
“I think a lot of people don’t realize how key our industry is to the recovery overall. Who makes Florida the lush tropical paradise that it is? It’s our folks growing the palm trees, growing those tropical plants and whatnot,” Coley said. “So we need to just be able to stay afloat here and get through this period and get some help and get back running again.”