Pallets in Apopka: the Indoor Foliage Capital

The town

Apopka is about 16 miles northwest of downtown Orlando and covers 32.6 square miles, in the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford metropolitan statistical area. It had 54,873 residents in the 2020 census, and its ZIP codes are 32703 and 32712. US 441 runs through it, with new stores to the north on a former citrus grove. The John Land Apopka Expressway, Toll 414, opened on May 15, 2009 and relieves some of the traffic on US 441; it begins at the US 441 junction with SR 429, passes south of the city and rejoins US 441 at Maitland Boulevard. The Wekiva Parkway extension created a junction at US 441 and Plymouth Sorrento Road and carries SR 429 east to Sanford; it was completed on 26 January 2024.

Where it sits in the county

Apopka is about 16 miles northwest of downtown Orlando. Freight reaches it by road, on US 441, SR 429 and Toll 414.

Why the pallets are different

The same 2009 county report ranked Orange County's nursery and floriculture industry eighth in the nation, using 2007 USDA sales figures, and most of its production sits near Apopka. A plant shipment is not a case of canned goods: pots, trays and carts have their own footprints, and the pallet is built or chosen to fit them.

The yard is the other difference. A nursery is damp by design, with irrigation and shade houses. Wood below 20 percent moisture will not support decay fungi, and a stack kept in that air needs cover, a gap under it and moving air to stay under the line.

Sizes seen

• Standard 48 x 40 for general plant freight.
• Odd sizes cut to a cart or tray.
• Heat-treated only for the loads that leave the country.

Clearing a growing yard

Broken pallets pile up wherever plants move, and a damp yard shortens their life. When the stack is past saving, the broken pallets page covers where it goes.

Nursery yards and the weather

Wet shade houses and open growing fields keep the humidity high, and the Köppen classification places the city in a humid subtropical zone with hot, humid summers. A nursery that uses wood pallets in that air needs to sort them often, because a pallet that has been wet and dried repeatedly can loosen at the nail lines. Photograph the underside of a pallet as well as the top when describing a nursery stack.