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Southern California flower, plant merchants feeling price sting of Iran war

April 17, 2026

Jesus Gomez keeps a large glass candy jar on his desk where his delivery drivers slip fuel receipts for cash reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses.

Since the Iran War began Feb. 28, Gomez, the owner of Orange County Wholesale Flowers, has taken away the gas credit cards for his fleet of diesel- and gas-fueled refrigerated trucks that deliver flowers to florists throughout Orange, parts of eastern Los Angeles and Riverside counties. This new expense system, he says, helps cut down on fuel costs.

“My guys used to just go out and fill up at any Shell station, but I had to collect the cards, and pay them cash to find the cheapest gas station around,” said Gomez, who blames the Iran war on the forced switch. “It’s a tragedy. It was pretty stupid to start something without thinking of the consequences.

“This gas thing is just hurting us so bad. Some floral shops are closing. People are buying less, but it’s costing me more.”

With spring planting in full force and Mother’s Day nearing, the supply chain for flowers, shrubs, vegetables, fruit trees and even fertilizer is experiencing a price shock from the U.S.- and Israel-led war against Iran.

In the six weeks since the conflict began, the average price of gas in California is 25% higher, up $1.17 per gallon to $5.864, as of April 16. Prices have settled somewhat, but not enough for Gomez.

Diesel prices in California hit a record high of $7.747 on April 9, up 57% from $4.944 on Feb. 23. They’ve since settled 12 cents lower.

Rising fuel costs are hitting floral shops hard across Southern California. Merchants are being forced to pay higher freight costs to receive and deliver flowers, with some seeing summertime weddings downsizing table arrangements and bouquet orders — or paying deposits at the last minute thanks to tighter budgets, according to managers interviewed.

Even landscapers and backyard gardeners are paying $6 or more for bags of urea fertilizer needed to help keep plants and grass green.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz, a key trading route for fertilizer, has constricted supplies and caused prices to spike around the world — including Southern California.

‘Nuclear sandwich’

Chris Roy, co-owner of Orange County Farm Supply in Orange, said his family-owned garden center and agricultural supply store just ordered two tons of prill-sized pellets of urea — or 80 bags weighing 50 pounds each — at $28.50, up 33% from $21.50 a month ago.

“The supplier called to tell us those prices were going up, so we got enough to last six months,” said the 65-year-old Roy, whose store has been slow to add freight surcharges to cover the rising fuel costs of deliveries.

Not liking the higher costs but willing to make sacrifices in profit, he supports the Trump administration’s war to contain Iran’s regional ambitions.

“I don’t want to eat a nuclear sandwich, so I support the president. Short-term, I know fuel prices are hurting everyone, but I just don’t want dirty bombs from balloon crates, or electromagnetic pulses over Kansas.”

A week ago, the supplier of Nitro Green, an all-season lawn fertilizer, called Jessica Lambert, the store’s buyer manager, to say it was raising the cost of its $39.99 bag by several dollars. “It’s our highest selling fertilizer,” Lambert said. “It’s a struggle.”

A shopper looks over fertilizer options at Green Thumb Nursery in Lake Forest on Friday. Closing the Strait of Hormuz, a key trading route for fertilizer, has constricted supplies and caused prices to spike around the world — including Southern California. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Others are also feeling the financial pinch from the war.

Plantenders Nursery, a wholesale seller of plants in Silverado, is considering hiking its delivery fees for landscapers and contractors to $70 from $50 — but may opt to throw in the towel as the higher fuel costs are the final nail in the coffin for his rustic nursery.

Last year, the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture cut down 30% of the nursery’s citrus trees on concerns they were infested with Asian citrus psyllid, a sap-sucking bug that transmits a devastating citrus disease.

“We haven’t raised our prices yet, but we’re hoping for fuel costs to stabilize and maybe go down. I’m sure they will once the war is pretty well wrapped up,” said the 77-year-old Laurie Park, who hopes to retire and shutdown his nursery in coming months. “The war is very young right now. It’s not like Vietnam or some of those other wars.”

Sunshine from Israel

Vis Seed Co., an Arcadia distributor and representative for flower seed breeders and producers worldwide, nervously placed a sizeable order for one of its best selling products — Sunshine Max sunflower seeds — from an Israel-based supplier just as the war broke out.

Anna Sariol, sales manager for Vis Seed, received a call from the supplier to say there were problems getting shipments out of the airport in Israel on a timely basis.

In the end, they didn’t get delayed, after all.

“We supply the people who supply the consumers. I was surprised when it came through the door a few weeks later. I said, ‘Wow, that was really fast,’” said Sariol, adding that the order for more than half-a-million seeds arrived in boxes, bagged in packages of 10,000 seeds.

Mary Swanton, granddaughter of Fred and Mitoko Yoshimura, founders of the nearly century-old San Gabriel Nursery & Florist along San Gabriel Boulevard, said the freight costs to deliver garden and house plants, including fruit trees and succulents, has gone up dramatically since the beginning of the Iran War.

“The plants being delivered to us, like the plants we buy, and the dry goods, are being tacked on with fuel surcharges,” Swanton said. “I have received over 10 notices of surcharges from different vendors. One freight company passed along a 51% surcharge with a possible 3% per-week increase. That was the only one that I double-checked the calculation on.”

Anthony Carrillo, general manager of Milfelds Nursery along Adams Street in Riverside, also is seeing surcharges tacked on.

“Overall, everything’s just up,” Carrillo said. “It’s gas prices for our delivery trucks, fertilizers have gone up, and the plastic cans (used for plants and trees) have gone up because of the petroleum used to make them.”

Milfelds hasn’t added a fuel surcharge on its own deliveries as of yet.

“It’s tough to do that with larger customers where you set pricing for a longer period,” Carrillo said. “The inventory we have on hand (plastic cans, fertilizer and peat moss), we are utilizing that and waiting to to see if we can ride it out before we purchase anything else new. The price hasn’t changed yet, but I’m sure we’ll see bigger increases coming within the next 30 days.”

Surcharge killers

Enchanted Florist, an Orange-based floral shop, says that delivery costs are fluctuating 30%-50% due to the fuel spikes.

“It’s affecting florists in a huge way because not only are the prices higher, but they’re unstable. We don’t know what our usual flower orders will cost week to week,” said Kate Mulleady, owner of Enchanted Florist. “We are definitely seeing fewer people ordering flowers. They’re really a luxury item, so any time the economy dips, we see a dip in orders.”

Mulleady said that her floral shop is trying to contain costs by switching import vendors, ordering bulk whenever possible and optimizing delivery routes.

With the dramatic increase in gas prices since the Iran conflict started, “our delivery fees have still had to go up between $1-$3 depending on the distance,” she said.

Caroline Cavecche, former mayor of Orange who now runs a microfarm called Flowers from the Thicket, and grows seasonal, hand-cut floral arrangements for everything from special events at Chapman University to weddings, said she’s seeing a drop in purchases.

“I see it at my end as well,” said Cavecche, whose microfarm, which sits on a small, urban plot in central Orange, focuses on high-yield flower production. “I deal with a lot of what I call studio florists, who work out of their homes, and it’s either a side hustle job for them or it is a full time job working out of their homes.”

The global pipeline

For 56-year-old Gomez, who has owned the Santa Ana-based wholesale flower distributor since 2003, flowers are delivered to his McFadden Avenue warehouse from all over the world.

Thousands of flowers are transported to his 11,000-square-foot warehouse where they are stored in huge refrigerated rooms used to keep them cool at 40 degrees following their chilly journeys aboard jet planes and trucks.

The fuel costs paid to get his product to the warehouse are the most expensive that Gomez has ever seen — which is why he abandoned the Shell credit cards.

Instead of paying $7,000 a month, Gomez figures he’s now paying more than $10,000, cutting deeper into thin profits margins for his nearly $5 million a year operation that employs about 16 workers, plus his wife and three daughters.

The rising fuel costs have been passed along to his business in surcharges from multiple freight companies, airlines who are paying more in jet fuel, and vendors who ship the flowers.

As examples, the surcharges have been placed on stemmed roses and other flowers delivered from Ecuador, Costa Rica and Colombia that are flown into Miami International Airport, then moved by 16-wheelers across the country to Gomez’s business on a weekly basis. The surcharges also are placed on orchids shipped from Thailand, tulips from Holland, and eucylptus from San Diego and other nurseries in Washington state, that come by way of Santa Ana Airport and Los Angeles International Airport, or by truck — if possible.

Every day, at 6 a.m. or earlier, Gomez is receiving deliveries on trucks filled to the brim with thousands of flowers packed in cardboard boxes on pallets. The flowers are sorted into staging areas for those that have been sold and are delivered to local florist shops, or displayed in a huge refrigerated showroom where florists come to pick out what they want delivered later in the week.

“We’re getting hit with increases in delivering the flowers from the farm in Ecuador, to the airport, to here,” he said. “And I have to fill my trucks here with fuel, that’s $2 more than what it used to be for a gallon of gas.”

Gomez worries about the future of his operation.

“Are we going to survive the next three months?” he asked. “Summer is coming, and it gets very slow after Mother’s Day.”

California’s flowers

Size of California’s nursery and flower crops: California’s cut flower and nursery industries generated over $2.56 billion in revenue in 2022, according to the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.

Percent of American-grown cut flowers that come from California: 75%

Cut flower sales in the U.S.: Sales by domestic producers increased by $90 million from 2017 to 2022 to about $800 million, according to a 2024 report from the U.S.Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

Cut flower sales imported: Cut flowers were up $783 million from 2017 to 2022 to roughly $1.9 billion, according to the Department of Agriculture. Of the $1.9 billion in imports, $800 million were fresh-cut roses. In 2022, the top three countries exporting cut flowers to the U.S. included Columbia, Canada, and Ecuador, with sales of $1.2 billion, $700 million, and $450 million, respectively.

Number of flowers sold in the U.S. grown domestically: One in five flowers sold in the U.S., according to a 2019 resolution offered by former U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died in 2023.

Number of florists and floral establishments in California and U.S.: 8,047 and 16,000, respectively.

Southern California flower, plant merchants feeling price sting of Iran war Orange County Register

News Details

Southern California flower, plant merchants feeling price sting of Iran war

‘Nuclear sandwich’

Sunshine from Israel

Surcharge killers

The global pipeline

California’s flowers

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