Long before it became the City of Arts and Flowers, Lompoc was simply the City of Flowers. The moniker was an obvious one, given the fields in bloom and the many seed manufacturing companies that dotted the area.
Lompoc resident Bess Christensen recalled first coming to Lompoc in 1964 and getting a tour of the valley from a friend who was a farmer.
“He said, ‘Did you ever think farming could smell so good?’” Christensen recalled.
Christensen later wrote a book about the flower seed industry, Acres of Loveliness, a volume on which the Lompoc Museum heavily relied for its exhibit: A Sweet Pea Centennial: 100 Years Growing Sweet Peas in Lompoc.
Historically, the city was awash in the heady scent of the sweet pea, a fragile, aromatic flower that favored the unique microclimate of the Lompoc Valley—particularly the western part with its deep, fertile soil; cool, foggy mornings; warm days; and cool evenings. The sweet pea favored local conditions so much, a typical acre would produce 4.2 million seeds. The flower flourished, and Lompoc made the sweet pea the city’s official flower in 1959.
“In its heyday, 90 percent of the world’s flower seeds were produced in Lompoc,” said Lisa Renken, director of the Lompoc Museum.
The sweet pea exhibit includes historic documents, photographs, and memorabilia of the flower seed industry collected over the last century. Much of the collection came from the Chamber of Commerce and the Lompoc Historical Society. Rounding out the collection is sweet pea-themed art by local artists, such as Gil Andersen, Vicki Andersen, Debby Fuller, Linda Gooch, Elizabeth Monks Hack, Marilyn Hains, Carol J. Oliveira, Julia Rodgers, Jan Manfrina, and Kiki Shappell.
The first sweet pea planting took place in 1908 when Robert Rennie planted a half acre of the fragrant plants at the request of a visiting Scotsman, C.C. Morse. The sweet peas planted on the ranch at the southwest corner of what’s now Central Avenue and H Street were so successful that a well-established flower and vegetable seed company owner in Philadelphia was soon notified. W. Atlee Burpee had been looking for a West Coast experimental farm, and in 1909 Burpee bought about 50 acres of land in the Lompoc Valley. He leased another 100 acres. In 1909, a total of 120 commercial acres were planted in sweet peas.
The next year, Anton Zvolanek was lured to Lompoc to grow sweet peas, and he and his son William are credited with several major advances, including the first winter flowering variety and multi-floral stems.
Both Burpee and Zvolanek ran family-owned operations. And in 1920, Bodger Seeds—another family-owned business—arrived in Lompoc, also swayed by the sweet pea. Through the years, seed companies arrived and left and changed hands.
These days, flowers are losing out to vegetables, primarily because its labor intensive nature makes flower growing expensive. Still, Christensen remembered a day when the flower industry not only flourished, but also padded the pockets of some of Lompoc’s residents.
“So many of the people in Lompoc of mature years earned their summer money working in the flower fields,” Christensen said.
Though its blossom may have faded a bit, Lompoc’s flower industry is still an important part of the city’s history and a grand memory for many of its residents.
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“You really can’t underestimate the flower industry,” Renken said. “It’s really tied into the identity of Lompoc.”
Arts Editor Shelly Cone loves sweet peas, delphinium, sunflowers, and poppies. Send her flowers at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 11-18, 2009.