Supermarket buyers may not recognize John Dolan’s name, but his work in Colombia and Ecuador has affected almost every box of roses they’ve received in the past 25 years. I met John in 1990, while working in Miami for a huge importer and bouquet-maker. My job was working with our 40-plus farms to diversify crop offerings.

For John Dolan, life was a bed of roses for almost four decades. Mr. Dolan embarked on a distinguished career as a trailblazing rose plant propagator who brought numerous bestselling roses to U.S. and international markets.

Mr. Dolan, who now lives in Pleasanton, CA, opened the door to Latin America for U.S.-bred roses. From Town Crier in 1961 to Amber in 2007, with bestsellers along the way like Classy and the No. 1 rose in Eastern Europe, Forever Young (12 million and counting), he introduced 33 rose varieties over the years.

Sprouts Farmers Market and Sunflower Farmers Market, two independent natural food store chains, announced March 9 they have agreed to merge. But will the merged chain carry flowers?

Sprouts did not originally carry flowers, though some of its subsidiary companies did, but has recently added floral displays.

This Mother’s Day, lots of lucky mothers will receive stunning sprays of cymbidium orchids, beautiful corsages and impressive orchid plants. And to make this happen, we here at Gallup & Stribling Orchids Inc. have been getting ready for mom’s big day all year long.

Beginning April 21, Stew Leonard’s garden centers are offering free Saturday morning workshops at their grocery stores in Danbury and Norwalk, CT, and Yonkers, NY. During each one-hour workshop, a company news release stated, attendees will learn about gardening techniques and trends from a Stew Leonard’s gardening expert and receive handout materials for home reference.

Yes, we all know the drill — how roses are grown, how foliage plants are grown, how blooming plants are grown. We can go on and on and on. But the most challenging part of our business is understanding how relationships with our customers are grown.

It has become my belief over the years that customers, just like plants, are growing entities, not SKUs. How many of us over the years have witnessed the SKUs in our floral shops growing from a handful to hundreds? And yet, in most cases, our customer count has not grown to this same degree.