Market House will open the event to everyone May 3. Calli Townsend | Collegian

Market House Supermarket will feature glow-in-the-dark firefly petunias grown in Hillsdale County May 2 and 3.

“I’ve been working with plants for 25 years,” said Susie Raker, owner of Raker-Roberta’s Young Plants. “The firefly petunias are the coolest and most magical thing I’ve ever seen.”

The flowers were developed by a team of engineers working for Light Bio, a company that creates and sells bioluminescent plants. The researchers isolated a gene in a bioluminescent mushroom in South Africa, which had DNA similar to petunias. They genetically modified the petunia to glow in the dark like the mushroom, according to Raker.

Market House designated May 2 from 4-6 p.m. as “an exclusive Ladies’ Night experience,” which will include hors d’oeuvres, charcuterie boards, wine tasting, live music from local musician Russ Martin, and a Kentucky Derby hat contest. 

Market House will open the event to everyone May 3. The wine tasting and charcuterie boards will be supplemented with bourbon sampling from the bourbon trail, and more live music, according to owner Brett Boyd. Both evenings will prominently feature the firefly petunias.

“We’re always looking for ways to diversify our business, so we reached out to Rakers in Litchfield,” Boyd said. “We fell in love with the fresh local flowers and cutting-edge technology all combined into one. We couldn’t be more excited about the events that we’re going to do to celebrate them.”

Boyd said there will be a dark room full of flowers to allow guests to see the plants glow throughout the evenings. 

Experts on the flowers will be available both nights to explain how the glow-in-the-dark flowers were created and how to care for them.

Light Bio reached out to Raker’s farm to collaborate on bringing the glow-in-the-dark petunias to market.

“They contacted me because of our capabilities with shipping plants directly to homeowners, and a great partnership was born,” Raker said. “We ended up shipping out 120,000 4-inch pots in spring of 2024.”

Raker said the firefly petunia got its name from the unopened flower buds, which use most of the plant’s energy just before opening and therefore glow brightly, resembling fireflies. 

The flowers were featured in Time magazine’s innovations for 2024.

“These plants that were worthy enough for Time magazine’s front page were grown right here in our local community,” Boyd said. “So we just want to have a lot of fun and celebrate this awesome thing in Hillsdale County.”

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