When temperatures rise, even roses survive best in the fridge. Naila Jamal still dared to start a business with the delicate flowers.

A green thumb does help, but with roses one needs more than that. “Taste and style, a feeling for colours, and very caring hands are helpful in the business of a florist”, says Naila Jamall. The entrepreneur, a mother of three children, runs the island’s main flower shop “T-Roses”, tucked below the popular Tatu Bar in Stone Town. She also does home deliveries, wedding decorations, is in charge of floral arrangements and other decorative tasks at the CPS company in Fumba. In her shop she keeps roses, carnations and lilies in a fridge with glass doors, typically reserved for sodas: “Fresh flowers don’t particularly like 30 and more degrees.” 

“It was very taxing when I started the flower business five years ago, because I knew nothing about it, and it remains a super sensitive job”, she says and explains how roses get to Zanzibar in the first place: “During the pandemic most flower growers of Arusha shut down because export was halted.” Jamal  turned to importing from Kenya. Until the  flowers reach her shop in Stone Town, they have to master an ardent journey: “Kenyan producers send them packed in boxes by taxi to the border of Namanga, then to Arusha, from Kili airport they are air-freighted to Zanzibar. Sometimes people step on them in the dalla-dalla, and they are ruined before they even get here”, Naila has experienced. A dire job, for a product selling at 1000 TZS per stem: “The profit margin is little but I am in love with flowers”, adds the elegant woman wearing large sun shades and a kaftan. And so are her customer’s, many of them regulars. 

“Zanzibari used to be more into artificial flowers”, says the florist,  “but this is changing”. Her secret to prolonging roses’ life in hot weather? “The bigger the stem the better. Arrange them on foam pads rather than in water. Use distilled bottled water.” The care is worth it, she says, “because flowers set a good mood.” And who would dispute that?

Info:

T-Roses

Below Tatu-Bar, Stone Town

Tel/ Whatsapp +255 778 629 641