Business is blooming for Roses of Wood

By ELISE McKEOWN SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
WARREN -- The scent of roses fills the air and floral arrangements sit on glass shelf after glass shelf.
Roses of Wood looks and smells like a traditional flower shop, but there's no cooler to keep roses fresh and there's no water in the vases.
That's because every flower in the store is made of wood.
Each one is created from individually crafted maple wood petals, explained Kevin Ulrich, co-owner of the business. Color is airbrushed onto the wood.
Twin brothers Kevin and Miles Ulrich first discovered wood flowers when Kevin was looking for a product to place in the wood vases he made himself. They were so impressed with the flowers, that in January they ordered 250 roses and began approaching convenience and drive-through store owners, asking them to carry the flowers on consignment.
"Most of us, if you want flowers you call a florist," Kevin said. "So the way I have to sell it out there is on impulse. And it's worked really well."
Within four months they had 120 stores, primarily in Northeast Ohio, carrying their product.
Need for space
As they began buying 500,000 flowers at a time, they realized they needed storage space. They moved into a space in the Elm Village Plaza on Elm Road, mostly for the basement storage area, Miles said.
Last Mother's Day weekend, however, they opened a retail operation at that location.
"We did advertising, but we didn't know how it would take off or how it would go," Miles said.
It went well. After doing around 6,000 in sales that weekend, the pair decided to rent the empty unit next to their store and enlarge their retail space, as well as gain another basement storage area. They knocked down the wall separating the two and gutted what had been a dentist's office.
In total, they spent 45,000 to renovate the space now know as Roses of Wood.
They have also taken over another section of basement at the opposite end of the plaza.
Just a few months later, 500 customers went through the store on Sweetest Day.
Based on the retail success they've had so far, the brothers plan to open another retail store in May, possibly in Austintown.
What's available
They offer small, fully closed, half-open and fully open roses and large bud and half-open bud roses, as well as lilies, tulips, daisies and sunflowers. They will soon have orchids.
The flowers are available in 56 colors. Prices for their product range from 5 to 150.
Kevin and Linda Ulrich, Miles' wife, make the arrangements sold in the retail store. They hire temporary arrangers for events such as weddings.
Though the brothers were working 40 hours a week at other jobs, they weren't content to stop with their retail accomplishment. In September, they formed a sister company partnership with Bergo Designs, an importer of the wood flowers based in Pompano Beach, Fla., and began wholesaling them.
Working with Bergo has enabled the brothers to develop their own colors for the flowers. Eleven new colors are in the works, six of which were created by Kevin and Miles.
"We never would have had that control without being with Bergo," Kevin said. "Normally, buying from somebody just selling wholesale they tell you what they have and you pick what you want. With this we have the control on the design, more or less."
"It gives us more leverage for being a wholesale supplier for the whole country," Miles added. "Because naturally, two people can do better than one."
The pair are in the process of creating a Web site to expand the wholesale portion of the business. They also plan to hire a full-time arranger soon.