In the Alaska Garden with Heidi Rader
“Hey, you want to go to Alaska this summer?” Rudy Klaver asked Eli Brockman a couple of years ago as the two high schoolers ate lunch. Eli said yes and joined Rudy for a summer working for the Russel family at Boreal Peonies in Two Rivers, Alaska in 2023.
Twenty-five years after University of Alaska Fairbanks horticulture researcher Pat Holloway’s initial discovery that Alaska held a niche in the peony market due to its unique bloom time and access to markets, the peony farming scene has ebbed and flowed.
From the first research plots being planted around 2001, to the boom between roughly 2014 and 2016, to post-COVID and high inflation rates that have left no business untouched, many farmers have come and gone. Those on the scene today are business savvy, hard-working, energetic, and have the health and lifestyles that allow them to focus on peonies full-tilt for at least six weeks during the height of the summer.
The peony farming gold rush in Alaska started because the flowers garnered a high price per stem due when they bloom. That is, they bloomed in Alaska in July and August during prime wedding season. At that time, peonies are not blooming elsewhere or at least nowhere with ready access to air transport and other infrastructure needed to export them.
The number of peonies planted in Alaska increased exponentially from 20 roots in 2004 to over 120,000 roots in 2012. In 2013, 150 peony farmers (or interested farmers) attended the Alaska Peony Growers Association (APGA) meeting which was close to the peak of interest. There was an effort to reach a global market (including Europe and Asia) through cooperatively marketed peonies.
In the last decade, peony farms in Alaska have increased tenfold. According to the latest Census of Agriculture, there were 100 peony farms in the state.
The growth has been propelled by headlines like these: Alaska’s peonies are the state’s new cash crop, ‘The industry’s about to explode’: Peony market flourishes in Alaska, Alaskan peony farmers aim to grow industry, and How Alaska became a center of peony cultivation.
Credit for the boom also goes to UAF Professor Pat Holloway who, 20 years ago, made it known that, because Alaska peonies bloomed at a time when they weren’t available anywhere else in the world–during the height of the wedding season–they could garner premium prices.
Notwithstanding the ebullient headlines, are Alaska’s peony farmers flourishing? Are they making money? That’s what I wanted to find out when I interviewed over a dozen farmers in Interior Alaska.
David Russelll is the president of the Alaska Peony Growers Association (no longer active), and owner of one the largest peony farms in Alaska. He likens peony farming to a video game. The first level is growing marketable peonies, the second, chilling and post-harvest handling, and the third, marketing. Each level presents new challenges and unknowns. If you successfully reach the third level, you must continue juggling all of the challenges of the first and second levels as well. Continue reading
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