Beyond roses: Kenya's summer flowers, and why they trade differently

The unit of trade changes, and that is the first thing to get right

Roses are sold by the stem. Gypsophila is sold by weight. Statice is sold by a bunch whose count varies twofold.

This is not a technicality — it is the most common way a summer-flower quotation becomes incomparable. Two suppliers quoting "per bunch" for statice may be fifteen stems apart on the same line. Ask what the bunch contains, by count and by weight, before comparing anything.

Observed specifications, recorded from traders' and growers' published listings. These are market observations, not our specifications, and not a standard.

What Kenya actually grows beyond roses

Five of these now have pages of their own — gypsophila, carnations, chrysanthemums, alstroemeria and hypericum — each with the inspection rate, tariff line and Australian dose for the genus. The flower pages →

Five of these now have pages of their own — gypsophila, carnations, chrysanthemums, alstroemeria and hypericum — each with the inspection rate, tariff line and Australian dose for the genus. The flower pages →

Gypsophila is the best-documented of the range: observed at 80 cm in 40 g bunches, and elsewhere at 50–70 cm, white and dyed. Alstroemeria is observed at 75 cm in UK retail listings of Kenyan-grown stock.

Beyond those, grower catalogues carry a long tail — chrysanthemums, lilies, statice, eryngium, craspedia, scabiosa, solidago, bupleurum, limonium, ornithogalum, delphinium, matthiola, astilbe, astrantia, helleborus, tuberose and sunflowers, alongside foliage and fillers.

What we cannot tell you is how big any of them is. No breakdown of Kenyan export value by flower type exists in the sources we could reach beyond the rose share. The customs subheadings that would resolve it exist — roses, carnations, orchids, chrysanthemums, lilies and a catch-all "other" — but the published Kenyan data does not separate them. Anyone quoting you a market share for Kenyan gypsophila is estimating.

They are grown by different people

This is the structural fact behind the product difference.

More than 90% of Kenyan flower production comes from medium and large-scale growers — typically vertically integrated, often holding direct supermarket contracts. But smallholder farmers mainly produce summer flowers, and their route to market runs through consolidators who aggregate harvests for export. The Kenya Flower Council supports smallholders in forming cooperatives to do exactly that, and at least one large operator has contracted smallholders in the thousands.

Flower farming occurs in 21 counties — a figure worth explaining, because you will also see fourteen. They are not rival estimates. Twenty-one counts every county where flower farming occurs; fourteen counts the principal named counties, in a source that expressly adds "as well as other small growers spread across different other counties." Different populations, not a contradiction.

The practical consequence for a buyer: volume roses come from a concentrated, contractually committed set of large farms. Summer flowers come from a fragmented base aggregated by intermediaries — which changes who you talk to, how far ahead you need to commit, and how much variation you should expect between deliveries.

They meet a different border

Great Britain physically inspects Kenyan roses at 25%. Kenyan carnations and gypsophila sit at 5%, and several other summer-flower genera at 10%.

So the range that is least documented online is also the range that meets the least friction at the UK border — five times lighter than roses. The reason the rose rate is heavier is a single regulated pest, and it does not touch this range at all — false codling moth, and the four routes it creates. The full inspection table is on the UK market page.

One exception worth knowing before you plan around it: chrysanthemums from any third country outside the EU and Switzerland are inspected at 100% — the heaviest cut-flower category in the table.

A caution about minimum order quantities

You will find minimum order quantities quoted for Kenyan summer flowers. Treat every one of them as dated.

A marketplace listing observed in August 2024 set a minimum of one "jumbo box" for alstroemeria from Kenya. Re-checked in September 2026, the same marketplace no longer uses that box nomenclature at all and states no origin-level minimum. The figure was true when recorded and is not current practice.

That is the general shape of MOQ information in this trade: point-in-time, supplier-specific, and changed without announcement. A minimum order quantity is a commercial term to confirm in writing with whoever you are buying from, not a property of the product or the origin.

What is honestly unresolved

• The carnation trajectory. Carnations are described historically as a Kenyan mainstay, but they are absent from most current grower catalogues except as sprays. Declining? We do not know, and we have not found a source that settles it.
• Export value by flower type. See above — not published in anything we could reach.
• Seasonality beyond roses. No month-by-month availability calendar exists for gypsophila, alstroemeria or the rest. Since much of this production is open-field or lightly protected, it is reasonable to expect it to be more rain-seasonal than greenhouse roses, not less — but that is an inference from the growing method, not a finding. The seasonal picture is here.

What to specify

• The unit first. Stems, weight per bunch, or stems per bunch — and for statice, the count, because it varies twofold.
• Length, which for fillers is doing the work of a grade.
• Whether dyed or natural, for gypsophila especially.
• What varies between deliveries, given the aggregated supply base — and what happens when it does.
• The minimum order, in writing, dated. Anything you read online about MOQs is a snapshot.