The months of April and May are its August. Jorge Guerra, 62, has been running for 16 a florist in the central square of. Actually, I have been in the trade for 30 years: “When I arrived I only looked for a job in florists because I had worked in the countryside in my country and I had experience,” he recalls. Today he witnesses the exception of what the carnations mean for a region that has linked a good part of his identity to this flower.
Reds are the colors of the community flag, Reds were until not long ago the buses that traveled Madrid from end to end, and reds are some of the carnations that the chulapas carry by San Isidro: two white carnations for the single ones, two reds for the married, one white and another red for which they are compromised, and one white and two reds for the widows.
But not only from San Isidro Lives Guerra. Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and All Saints’ Day also suppose. Being strict, in fact, San Isidro’s carnations do not mean so much. Most of those who carry people that day, recognize, are plastic. But the collective imaginary is something else: there is no San Isidro without carnation, this comes from where it arrives.
Because to arrive with sufficient stock at all these dates marked on his calendar, Guerra has for years a trick: his carnations are Colombians. So are most of those bought in the city, although many do not know it. “The carnations usually arrive mainly from Murcia and Colombia. Personally, I only work with Colombians. They are more hard, their stem is more flexible and their flower is more durable, which is fundamental in Madrid, where it is very cold or very hot. The national carnation is cheaper, but its stem is more fragile. Although I pay something else, I stay with the Colombian.”
Guerra is not, much less, an exception: “Many in Madrid do not know that the carnations come from so far,” he explains. In 2024, Spain stood as the third European country with the highest import volume of Colombian Clavel, according to Augusto Solano, president of. Specifically, at national level 9,000 tons of flowers were imported from Colombia, 38% more than a year ago, which resulted in an expense of more than 44 million euros, 36% more. The Andean country is, in fact, the largest global carnation exporter and the second largest exporter of flowers in general, only surpassed by the Netherlands, complete.
There are those who have seen in this fruitful Hispanocolombian relationship around the carnation an opportunity to do business. Santiago Labete, founder of Pilco Flowers, a floriculture company located in Bogotá since 1997, remembers everything. The arrival of Americans in the 80s to the territory to cultivate carnations, that of the Dutch in the 90s and, finally, the explosion of the sale to Spain and Italy. “In Colombia, a second carnation is sold. The entire good flower is exported,” he explains on the phone. Labete is married to Patricia Roldán, who is in turn founder of, a florist located in a place in Madrid that is still symbolic: just a few steps from the Metro Colombia stop. The connection between both businesses allows in less than 24 hours a Colombian Clavel stem to be in the hand of its Bogota collector to decorate the head of a chulapa.
These experts arrived in Spain in 2023. That year, Labete was managing a flower distribution company from Extremadura: “I had a sabbatical year and I wanted more: I enrolled in a floral design course and presented my dream project: a cafeteria-floristería,” says Roldán. That gave rise to Flora of origin, which has seen the light in February of this year.
The path of the Colombian carnation of Pilco Flowers to Flora of origin is always the same. Bogotá arrives the mother plant, imported from Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. At 46 weeks the first cliff stem is obtained, which can give three types of qualities: from better to worse, select, fancy (which can be translated as “elegant”) or standard. From there, the most common is to sell them in branches of 20 stems. Collected in more than half of the cases by women holding the family economy, the carnations reach commercial airplanes that take the Bogotá-Madrid route in about 10 hours. The result: the carnation of the family business of Labete and Roldán changes the continent in just one day through seven direct daily flights.
“Almost no one controls the process like us. It is the advantage of being on both sides. When you are the exporter, you can not see the end of the process. However, to see in this case how the same flowers that leave the Bogota greenhouses arrive at the store is very satisfactory,” they explain.
The Colombian carnation becomes fashionable
“The European market seeks more and more unique varieties and flowers with greater resistance,” says Nicolás Gil, head of the Marketing Department of, a company that exports Colombian Clavel to 14 countries thanks to the climate of the Bogota savannah. In their case, the carnations arrive in Madrid in about 48 hours. “This ensures the final consumer a fresh flower, with a long life and with all the energy of the Colombian tropics.”
In Colombia, Gil delves, the carnation is the flower of the gods: “It is a symbol of history and the connection that joins Madrid and Colombia. It is a flower that is increasingly present in the Madrid celebrations. For us, it is an international recognition to the effort behind the quality of each stem. It is a national pride. We are very motivated to know that our work helps to beautify the holidays that occur in other latitudes.”
