To collect every last stem and ribbon, Mr. Patrikis is constantly on the phone negotiating with 15 distributors to get the best deals.
“If you don’t know how to buy from the wholesalers, the wholesalers will buy you,” he said.
Depending on the length of a stem, the size of the bloom and the nation of origin, a dozen New York roses can cost a customer anywhere from $10 from a street vendor to more than $120 from a high-end florist. Mr. Patrikis prefers the red Explorer variety of roses, which he said tend to have larger blooms and stay fresh longer than some other varieties.
Sales in the flower industry, where same-day, local deliveries are common, rose early during the pandemic. So is the price of doing business, with rising fuel costs, flower shortages and supply chain problems.
The increased prices have put pressure on longtime florists like Mr. Patrikis, whose shop was one of five on his block around 2010. Ditmars Florist is now the last one left.
“We’ve never been busier in our lives,” Mr Patrikis, 37, said of opening in time for Mother’s Day 2020 after the first pandemic closure. “We didn’t sleep for a week.”
Americans spent nearly $73 billion on flowers, seeds and potted plants last year, a 48 percent increase from 2019 after adjusting for inflation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
But there are signs of volatility in the industry.
Troy Conner, the president of Kendall Farms, a large flower farm in Fallbrook, Calif., that sells to supermarket chains and wholesalers, said many of his costs had also skyrocketed.
Since last year, he said, the demand for flowers had started to decline. He said he may repurpose some land that was earmarked for growing sunflowers, once a profitable crop, to raise goats.
At Ditmars Florist, Mr. Patrikis said, the profit margin has shrunk since the beginning of the pandemic, from 20 to 30%, to 10 to 20%. The store may have sales of $150,000 and $300,000 per month.
He said higher sales volume has allowed him to catch up so far. This year, he expects to sell more than 100,000 red roses, his most popular product, up from 70,000 in 2019. On Valentine’s Day, his busiest holiday, he sells 15,000 roses.
The Society of American Florists, a trade group, predicts the number of florists in the country will drop to 11,000 by 2026, in part due to retirements and consolidation. There were 11,600 in 2021.
In the third quarter of last year, there were 398 florists in New York, up from 432 in the same period in 2019, according to James Parrott, director of the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School.
Mr. Patrikis’ father, Ioannis, a Greek immigrant from the island of Nisyros, sold flowers on the subway and eventually opened his first flower shop in Astoria in 1983 before moving to the current 1,500-square-foot store in 2008.
Mr Patrikis said he felt compelled to stay in the family business. Sales remain brisk, mainly because it has a wide range of customers – weddings, funerals, Greek Orthodox churches. But he worries about consumer spending habits now that most pandemic-era government benefits have dried up.
However, he is optimistic about his future because his family bought their building in 2003.
“The only ones who are going to stay are the ones who own their buildings,” he said.
Ben Casselman contributed to the report.
Produced by Eden Weingart, Andrew Hinderaker and Dagny Salas. Development by Gabriel Gianordoli and Aliza Aufrichtig.
