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From humble roots to full bloom

Our Story

Alexandra Farms is a family-owned boutique grower of romantic, nostalgic, fresh-cut garden roses nestled in the fertile savanna of Bogotá, high in the Andes mountains of Colombia. The farm was founded in 2005 by Jose R. Azout and is named after his daughter, Alexandra.

Since then, we’ve been dedicated to cultivating flowers with exceptional beauty, fragrance, and performance. Our garden roses inspire florists and flower lovers around the world.

In our 50 acres of greenhouses, more than 400 garden-rose-loving employees hand-graft, harvest, grade, and pack more than 42,000 garden rose stems each day. Our collections feature more than 85 varieties of garden roses, dahlias, and accent flowers, each carefully selected for its distinctive shape, color, and charm. Our long-lasting, award-winning blooms are available year-round through floral wholesalers around the world.

Guided by respect for nature and community, Alexandra Farms proudly holds several third-party sustainability and industry certifications, including Florverde Sustainable Flowers and One Carbon World. See our sustainability commitments for the full list.

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The Alexandra Farms Story

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Alexandra Farms 20th Anniversary, 2005 to 2025

The First 20 Years

From a small rented farm on the outskirts of Bogotá to one of the world’s leading growers of fresh-cut garden roses, here is how the story has unfolded. Want the whole story? Read the full 20-year retrospective.

2005

The Birth of a Garden Rose Farm

Jose R. Azout attended the Horti Fair in the Netherlands, where he saw a new line of garden roses bred for the cut flower market by David Austin Roses. It inspired him to create a garden rose farm in Colombia. He assembled a small team, rented a 5-acre (2-hectare) farm on the outskirts of Bogotá in Madrid, and began testing garden rose varieties.

2006

Breeder Partnerships Begin

When David Austin’s cultivation permit was granted to another Colombian grower, we sought out varieties from European breeders like Rosen Tantau, Meilland, and Kordes. These became the foundation of our Deluxe Garden Roses Collection. We also experimented with mini calla lilies and hydrangeas.

2007

First Commercial Exports

Our first commercial exports reached Delaware Valley in the U.S. and several customers in Europe, including Four Seasons Quality. We expanded operations from 5 acres (2 hectares) to 7.5 acres (3 hectares).

2009

First Proflora Participation

We debuted our collection at Proflora in Colombia, showcasing 10 garden rose varieties and our hydrangeas. We have participated in every Proflora since.

2010

Second Farm Opens

Our operations expanded, and we opened a second farm in Tocancipá, named San Ignacio.

2012

David Austin Wedding Roses License Granted

After seven years of successfully growing garden roses, the David Austin Wedding Roses license in Colombia was assigned to Alexandra Farms, and we established the David Austin Wedding Roses Collection. We quickly became the world’s largest David Austin Wedding Roses grower. Relationships with Japanese breeders and buyers flourished, and Japan became our second-largest market at the time. We also established El Jardín, a new farm where most of our operations take place to this day.

2013

Russian Exports and Florverde Certification

We began exporting to Russia and participated in the FlowersExpo show. We earned our first Florverde certification seal for ethical and sustainable practices, which we maintain to this day.

2014

Two New Garden Rose Collections

We obtained a license to grow the luxurious Wabara garden roses, bred in Japan; these varieties form our Wabara Garden Roses Collection. We also established the Princess Garden Roses brand, with varieties from other breeders in Japan, and launched the Princess Garden Roses Collection. Russia became our second-largest market.

2017

Operations Expand, Brand Redefined

We expanded our greenhouse area to nearly 50 acres (20 hectares). We unveiled a new logo inspired by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, a Belgian botanical artist, that highlights our romantic, nostalgic, and history-driven identity.

2018

BASC Certification Granted

We earned ‘Safe’ certification from BASC, an international alliance that promotes safe trade in voluntary cooperation with governments, border agencies, control authorities, and international organizations.

2021

Post-Pandemic Recovery

After a 97 percent drop in sales during 2020 and several cuts to our production, we fully recovered over 2021 and 2022 as the industry rebounded.

2022

Product Expansion

We began testing dahlias, tweedia, and hellebores to diversify our catalog with high-end crops that complement our garden roses.

2023

Carbon Neutral Certification Achieved

We earned the Carbon Neutral International Standard Certification from One Carbon World, a nonprofit organization supported by United Nations Climate Change.

2025

20th Anniversary Celebration

Alexandra Farms celebrates two decades of growing the world’s finest fresh-cut garden roses, a milestone of innovation, sustainability, and growth.

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20 Years at Alexandra Farms

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From Farm to Vase

The Journey of Every Stem

So much care and attention to detail happens at every stage of a garden rose’s journey, from the greenhouse to your hands. As living things, their quality is shaped by details as fine as the time of day they’re cut, how open the bloom is at harvest, and how they’re hydrated afterward.

Grown and cut by hand in the greenhouses
Grouped and carried to the post-harvest room
Sorted, bunched, and labeled
Hydrated and treated with a Quick Dip
Refrigerated to lock in freshness
Loaded and shipped around the world

Two to three refrigerated trucks leave the farm every day of the week, carrying boxes of garden roses to the airport and onward to florists around the world.

If you could see everything that goes into a single stem, you’d find that a garden rose is never only beauty. It’s also work, care, love, and a great deal of patience.

Our Logo

Rooted in Rose History

The logo for Alexandra Farms expresses our connection to rose history. It is inspired by the famous botanical illustrator Pierre-Joseph Redouté and his illustrations of Empress Joséphine Bonaparte’s rose collection at Malmaison, near Paris, in the early 1800s. The logo is based on Rosa Muscosa, seen here, by Redouté.

In 1810, the Empress Joséphine settled at the Château de Malmaison, where she kept vast gardens and amassed a collection of 300 varieties of roses. They bloomed at most once a year, rarely all at the same time, as roses did in that period. Frustrated that she could never show visitors every bloom, she commissioned Redouté to paint them. He made more than 300 anatomically correct portraits of her entire collection, and thanks to him, Joséphine’s roses live on. The paintings have become iconic.

The remarkable thing is how many of Alexandra Farms' garden roses today look almost exactly like those paintings, even though they perform in ways Joséphine could only have dreamed of.

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