Thanks to an immense array of flower orders to decorate floats in the Tournament of Roses Parade, business is literally blooming for this 100-year-old L.A. business.
For yet another year, Mellano & Company, a flower and foliage company situated downtown, literally abutting the Original L.A. Flower Market, has been tasked with providing flowers for 25 different parade floats.
“We’ve got nearly half-a-million stems of roses going on the floats that we’re supplying, plus all sorts of other stuff,” explained Bob Mellano, owner and grandson of the business founder Giovanni Mellano, who began Mellano & Company in 1925.
Having started on Dec. 23, the company has been driving truckloads of flowers up to Pasadena and surrounding towns, where diligent float builders and decorators have begun the process of covering their creations with a breathtaking and scent-savoring array of flowers and greenery.
Bob Mellano points out some family photos hanging on the walls at Mellano & Company on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (Photo by Jarret Liotta) Roses ready to ship at Mellano & Company on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (Photo by Jarret Liotta) A pallet of flowers bound for Artistic Entertainment Services, which creates floats for several different groups including the San Diego Zoo and the state of Louisiana ready to ship at Mellano & Company on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (Photo by Jarret Liotta) Maria Navarrete, warehouse manager, prepares a cart with cellophane for shipping at Mellano & Company on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (Photo by Jarret Liotta) Bob Mellano, owner of Mellano & Company at the store on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (Photo by Jarret Liotta) Bob Mellano makes note of some flowers that will be used on the Honda float at Mellano & Company on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (Photo by Jarret Liotta) Show Caption1 of 6Bob Mellano points out some family photos hanging on the walls at Mellano & Company on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (Photo by Jarret Liotta) ExpandWhile Mellano & Company will finish up the main deliveries on Dec. 28, the following two days will include the rush of last-minute add-on orders for float builders that, perhaps, hadn’t anticipated how much float real estate they needed to cover the floats, or perhaps just want to add a particular color of flower to help complete the picture.
Maria Navarrete, warehouse manager since 2009, can hardly believe the extent of the undertaking.
“The amount of flowers, the amount of labor it takes behind the scenes, the long hours, how many trucks it takes to get all the flowers to the Rose Bowl,” she said.
The intense recent rainstorm over Christmas caused some delays for the team, in part because they didn’t want to have the store anything outside in the heavy rain. Still, the 20,000-square-foot facility has at times this week been jammed with products that have arrived from around the world — China, Holland, Philippines, Columbia and Canada, as well as Florida and California.
Along with stores in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, and Las Vegas, Mellano & Company also prides a 400-acre farm in operation in San Diego County, where they grow a bounty of greenery and flowers.
“We produce flowers and ship them all over the country, and we get flowers from all over the world,” Mellano said, noting that the famous flower fields in Carlsbad are owned by the business.
There was a lot of activity early Saturday morning at the company, where people started work as early as 2 a.m. to get a jump on their shipments. Several people were running roses by the dozen through an automated trimmer, after which they were hydrated and arranged in buckets.
Well over 100 carts throughout the veritable flower warehouses of the company were stacked with dozens upon dozens of buckets of roses and other varieties. These, in turn, were wrapped tight with cellophane and ultimately loaded on to various trucks for shipment.
“Every year it can be different,” Mellano said, depending on the size of the floats, the team behind them and how they work, and other elements too. Each year, he said, there are always some unique problems that arise, such as shipping delays from overseas, but each year the team also manages to complete the orders.
“You come up with a different solution,” Mellano said. “You come up with a different plan, whatever it is, because you can’t let a float go down there without flowers.”
Mellano & Company has a unique history that began when Giovanni, an Italian immigrant, settled in Los Angeles in 1921, where he sold flowers. In 1925, along with his brother and another partner, they opened the business that has continued to thrive for a full century.
Bob Mellano, who literally grew up on a flower farm in Cerritos and followed his own father into the business, said they believe his grandfather helped provide some of the flowers to the 1925 Rose Parade, as well as every parade since.
“We think we’ve done it 100 years,” he said. “My grandfather was selling them something 100 years ago.”
The last 30 years, however, they’ve been tasked with doing numerous floats, each of which can require at least 10,000 or 15,000 flowers or plants, and much more depending on its size, with floats range from 35 to 100 feet in length.
As part of the float requirement, each visible spot on the display must consist of organic material of some kind —generally flowers but also plants or any creative substitute.
“The Rose Parade is a worldwide phenomenon, but without the flowers there’s not much there,” Mellano said. “The floats make the parade and the flowers make the floats.”
Jarret Liotta is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and photographer.
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