Molo River Roses blossoming in low altitude

“The cactus thrives in the desert while the fern thrives in the wetland”. This old quote by Vera Nazarian is what drove Andrew Wambua the General Manager of Molo River Roses to establish the farm. The farm which is near the equator at an altitude height of 1750m above sea level is situated in low altitude growing zone.

In what was assumed to be a trial by the management of the farm after hiving off 10 hectares of land from a ranch, the roses proved them wrong as they did blossom to full maturity.

“When I was posted here in 2012 to start this flower farm, I was a bit skeptical as there was plenty of land but it was full of shrubs and anti-hills. The temperatures were a bit high,” elaborated Wambua.

The first greenhouse where they planted the Athena flower, shading was introduced to prevent excess direct sunlight. They later discovered that the sunlight was not that extreme as anticipated, for the variety managed a head size of 4.5 cm.

The farm, located in Nakuru County along the Nakuru- Eldama Ravine road, boosts of other sister farms under the umbrella of Mzurrie Flowers which include Winchester in Nairobi, Maji Mazuri in Eldoret and the newly created Bahati flowers in Nakuru.

They grow more than 22 varieties of both standard and spray roses, with Athena being their favorite in terms of customer preference. During last year’s IFTEX, the company was feted for being the best in bunching of flowers.

Read the full article in Hortfresh Journal May – June 2016 edition

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