It’s a 15 minutes drive from Enashipai Resort & Spa in Naivasha, Kenya to Nini flowers and the thought of the beauty I was going to behold engulfed my mind throughout the trip and in no time I was there and just by the gate to my left was the inscription ‘Nini Flowers’ and as we went in through the gate, I remembered one of my mother’s favourite songs (God rest her soul), an all time classic by Bobby Vinton released in 1962 in his album Roses Are Red and I sang beneath my breath “Roses are red my love, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, my love, but not as sweet as you” …and in few minutes, the bus stopped just by the administrative building after which we all made our way into the reception and later taken to the manager’s office in the person of Philip Kuria. He did an amazing job explaining to us in details what the farm was all about. Okay, confession time…yes Philip spoke brilliantly and it was evident he knew his onions as every question he was asked, he answered to the best of his ability but let’s be real, how do you take a lady to tour a rose farm….again I repeat a ROSE farm and think her mind won’t be in the practicality of seeing the fresh, beautiful roses live? Like seriously???
Ok, so I listened well to Philip and as he handed us over to our tour guide, guess who jumped up first immediately he was done with the introduction…well, let me just pretend and say I don’t know what that answer is however, our tour guide did an amazing job taking us one place after the other and giving us details. Our first point of call was in one of the green rooms where the flowers that were in various stages of development are kept. There were labels above them showing when they were brought in and changes that had taken place from when they were brought in to where they are now. Yes! I saw some flowers but I was anxious to see the full grown roses in all its glory.
Off we went to their fertigation station where I was so impressed at their safe working pressure method put in place such that the person in charge of the fertigation station must at the end of the day drain the remaining air within the compressor cylinder so as to reduce the amount of condensed water within the cylinder which in time if not removed, will cause rust and will reduce the thickness of the cylinder which is quite dangerous.
We later left for a large cold store where the flowers were being cleaned and ready for export. It was an amazing view with all the workers neck deep at work. I saw different colours of roses and I couldn’t wait to get to the last point of call which I will share with you soon. Right there in the large store where the workers were operational, there was another mini chilled store obviously a higher degree of coolness than the bigger one, because after the roses are pruned and packaged, they are brought into this smaller room before they are transferred for export. After we left there, we were taken into another room where the ones to be exported were kept. Apparently, Nini flowers just broke through into the Australian market and we saw the ones ready to be exported to Australia.
After the tour which lasted over an hour due to the size of the farm, we headed for our last point of call that I had been waiting for, the Vase Life room and coming into it and seeing a sea of roses in their full glory in different colours got me really excited I started singing “Roses” by Haywoode “Then you go give me roses, Talking me round for hours, Then you go give me roses, When all I want is you…” then I added “I want the flowers too..” Gosh! Such an amazing sight to behold.
Juliet is in charge of the Vase Life room and I walked up to her and asked her what she was doing and she said she was ‘terminating’ the flowers and my heart dropped. “Everything looks beautiful, what is there to ‘terminate’?” I asked myself and she spared me the agony of misunderstanding the use of the term in such a beautiful place when she says “we have 20% termination whereby when half of the flowers are spoilt, we remove the parts that are spoilt and save the rest but when it is 50% spoilt, we throw the entire flower away” she tells me. I must say that Juliet has such an amazing personality; it was easy to tell she loves her job with the way she attended to the flowers in detail. I won’t be surprised if she’s a sweetly romantic woman…her name is ‘Juliet’, need I say more?…you get the drift?
What a way to end the tour…please don’t ask if I got you some flowers because by now, they would be dead. Nevertheless, when next you are in Kenya, make sure you visit Naivasha and get to Nini Farms and trust me, Roses are red, violets are blue, if love is seen in flowers, Nini proves it to be true!
At 190m above sea level, along the shores of Lake Naivasha, Nini Ltd has established a successful rose growing business. Nini was established in the late 1996 and since 2011, both minor shareholders have been bought out and Nini is now owned 100% by the Coulson family. It has 44 hecters under production and is a silver member of the Kenya Flower Council. Nini has 46 automated greenhouses along which there are paved roads. There is a well equipped pack house with modern cold stores. Nini is committed to conservation of the environment and as such has a comprehensive environment policy. Nini has various rose varieties some of which are Boogy (pink), Topsun (Orange) Viva (Yellow), Akito (white) Fushia (cerise), Red Calypso (Red) and so many others.
Kemi Ajumobi
