Orban’s may be the most colorful 14 acres in town. You can see it for free on Saturday

Marty Orban could make the argument that the most colorful and beautiful 14 acres in Bradenton on Saturday will be Orban’s Nursery, 9601 Ninth Ave NW, where 160,000 holiday poinsettias are blooming.

The poinsettias, a sea of reds, pinks, yellows, and whites, make a festive decoration for the holidays and are grown for shipment to garden centers.

One day a year, Orban invites the public to drive through the nursery to see all the flowers. This year the free drive through is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Members of the public can drive through, stop, take photos, and, if they like, buy a flower or two.

This year’s stock came from South America and Ethiopia, and were carefully tended to bring them into their full glory.

Ashley Wiser has worked at Orban’s for five years, and was part of a crew this week putting 5,000 potted plants into foil and cellophane for shipment to Publix Supermarkets.

“It’s kind of fun when you’re sticking them in pots, and you get wet all day and wear sandals,” Wiser said. “Each year we get to see new varieties. After this we go into peppers and tomatoes.”

The Orban family has been been producing crops for more than 100 years, starting in Ohio, before moving to Florida.

The northwest Bradenton local is ideal for growing poinsettias because it is such a temperate area given the proximity of the Gulf of Mexico and Manatee River, Orban said.

“Our family has been in the Bradenton area since 1952, the year I was born,” Orban said.

Family patriarch, the late Bill Orban, moved to Florida in 1952 to grow flowers and ship them to his greenhouses in Ohio. He was hired as a chrysanthemum grower by Manatee Fruit Co. in 1955, and in the 1960s started growing poinsettias for his Holmes Beach garden center, The Flower Garden.

Orban’s Nursery has been at its current location since 1974.

Poinsettias can live for years, and homeowners who want to ensure blooms from their poinsettias next year should not prune any leaves after Sept. 1. The plants need 12 hours of continuous darkness, and need to be well fertilized, Orban said.

For more information about Orban’s Nursery and the open house, visit http://www.orbans.com/.