Pierson, FL

The Ferneries of Pierson, Fla.

In north-central Florida, where the urban landscape gives way to a rural stretch along U.S. 17 and the railway line to Jacksonville, lies a pocket of three counties which produce the bulk of all cut fern foliage grown in the United States. And in the center of it all lies the town of Pierson (pop. 3,084).

A sign on the way into town reads “Welcome to Pierson, Fern Capital of the World, ” and a drive through back roads explains the claim. They lead past one fernery after another tucked under thickets of tall oaks or so-called saran houses—acres of plastic shade cloth supported by posts to retain moisture and shade the plants underneath.

Ferns thrive here because they are ideally suited to central Florida’s sandy and porous soil, shade, and year-round warm weather. Today, between 200 to 250 growers, large and small, make their living from the sale of cut ferns and other foliage around Pierson—used by florist shops across the nation for cut flower arrangements.

Each week, hundreds of boxes of cut foliage are loaded on trucks at shipping terminals in Pierson, bound for global markets. Growers supply customers with greenery year-round, but demand, especially for leatherleaf fern, is highest from Valentine’s Day through Mother’s Day.

Richard Hagstrom co-owns Albin Hagstrom & Sons Inc. of Pierson, a family-owned business founded by his grandfather in 1928. With more than 400 acres, the business supplies customers in the United States and Canada with fern and other greens and floral products.

Each old-timer has his own chronological history of the area’s fern industry, Hagstrom says, and it was just by chance that the industry became such an integral part of the area’s economy.

No one knows that better than Russell Pierson, 84, who was born in the town bearing his family’s name. His grandfather, Peter, was a Swedish immigrant who came to Florida in 1876 with his two brothers and cousins. Another brother, Andrew, had developed greenhouses and ornamental nurseries in Connecticut, where he cultivated the lacy asparagus plumosus fern, as well as the “Killarney” rose and other varieties. Convinced that fern might do well in Florida’s sandy soil, the family planted plumosus on their land, thus starting the town’s first fernery in 1904.

“Nobody had any idea that the industry was going to grow into what it did,” Pierson recalls. “When they came here, there wasn’t anything but pine, palmetto, and rattlesnakes. Nobody lived here.”

As a boy, Pierson worked in the ferneries and the family’s citrus groves driving mules. He now leases about 20 acres, mostly fern and cut foliage. Some of it’s from the same stock perpetuated in 1904.

Today, the tri-county area accounts for 80 percent to 85 percent of all cut greens produced in the United States, with annual gross sales estimated at $110 million.

Like any farmer, the fern growers have faced challenges—the whims of weather, plant diseases, and the marketplace—but, like other farmers, they have learned to endure.

Fern growers won’t give up, says Linda Landrum, a Volusia County horticulture extension agent. “They’re truly a pioneer type of people with a strong attachment to the land.”

Diversification and consolidation have become important to today’s industry, with many growers importing greens from Western states and investing in land in Central America where ferns also grow well.

“Today, we’ve changed the way we do business,” says Scott Jones, president of Ronald Jones Ferneries in Pierson. The business grows about a dozen different varieties of foliage, owns farms in Costa Rica, and imports wild-harvested greens from such areas as British Columbia, Washington, and California.

“We’re no different than any other farmer,” Jones says. “We just sell a different widget. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

“I love it,” says grower Richard Hagstrom. “I’m nearly 66, and I’ll never retire. Almost every day I get frustrated over the competition, the environment, but the next morning, I’m invigorated, energized, and ready to go.”

Ann Mikell writes from her home in Eustis, Fla.

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