"There’s a lot of competition out there. We can’t compete on price but we can on quality," he says, adding that Chile is now a leading supplier of paeony flowers, as are Australia and South Africa.
With his wife, Cindy, Mr Whitson owns Janefield Paeonies, which has been producing herbaceous paeonies for 23 years.
Plants are no longer sold, all the focus being on the cut-flower market, and the majority of blooms are sent offshore.
They are now trialling three types of fabric for covering the tunnel houses and Mr Whitson says, "It’s amazing the difference in the quality of the flowers [so] most of our stuff is now grown under cover."
That gives Janefield Paeonies early blooms to send to North America and Asia during the third week in October, ahead of the Chilean growers. Three weeks later in mid-November, the Whitsons’ "full pick" starts.
Janefield Paeonies has 14,000 of the herbaceous plants that die down in autumn and come up again from late winter.
"We’re mainly the corals," Mr Whitson says. Opening in warm salmon shades that fade to cream as the blooms age, the likes of "Coral Sunset" are especially popular in the United States and the Whitsons’ aim each year is to have them ready in time for American Thanksgiving Day.
They grow several other varieties, including "Red Charm", pinks "Sarah Bernhardt", "Nick Shayler" and "Pillow Talk", as well as creamy-white "Bowl of Cream".
"I pick by eye and use a knife, no secateurs," Mr Whitson says.
Stems are taken to the chill room, where they stripped of leaves, graded and bunched before being exported.
"You can’t make money in the paddock, only in the chiller," he says.
