California Pajarosa has been in the forefront of rose development and growing for 30 years. We were the first rose grower in America to adopt hydroponic growing practices. Our methods have been widely adopted throughout the world. We continually conduct research and development that lead to reduced consumption of resources and reduced impact on the land as we produce ever more beautiful, longer lasting roses.
When California Pajarosa opened for business, the state of the rose growing art was characterized by in-ground growing. It required lots of water, lots of fertilizer, and lots of pesticides. All three were expensive. We knew from the beginning that we wanted to grow in a different way.
The first big issue we tackled was water consumption and runoff management. Although we have clean, highly productive water wells on our property, pumping high volumes of water is expensive. Worse, runoff water that is contaminated by fertilizing chemicals and pesticides is bad for the environment.
Hydroponics is a method for growing in which nutrients are delivered to plants in water rather than through soil. It is somewhat counterintuitive that growing in water would reduce our use of water, but that is exactly what we found. The water we use is filtered, adjusted for pH balance, and reused in an extremely efficient loop that almost completely eliminates runoff. Recycling our water also allows us to recycle the nutrients that we add to the water to feed our roses. The result has been a dramatic reduction in the use of fertilizers.
Finally, we found that the use of natural biolgical controls, benificial insects and measures as simple as sticky-tape fly traps has allowed us to reduce our use of pesticides that are harsh on plant.
Today our roses are grown in a coconut husk medium and receive exactly the amount of water and nutrients each variety needs for robust, blemish free growth. Our growing practices are so clean that our roses would qualify for organic certification—if you didn’t have to grow in soil to be considered organic.
Our roses are Certified for achieving the highest levels of sustainability.