Valentine's Roses

How do you choose a rose and know that you are buying a good, quality
fresh product? That's a great question, especially with Valentine's Day
right around the corner. No one wants to look at a vase of roses with
their heads drooped over on February 15. Many things factor into the
quality of fresh flowers on a high volumn week. The growers will want to
cut as much product as they can, and sometimes that means they are sending
out immature blooms. Those would be the very tight, small, hard roses you
sometime see. We florists call those "bullets" and they never open. At the
wholesale level, in order to handle the volume of product, the roses may
sit in a tightly packed box in the cooler a few days longer than normal. A
rose can sit a couple of days without water, but too long and it will
affect it's ability to draw water up the stem. The signs of a rose under
stress would be dry, blackened or fallen foliage and a veiny, wrinkley look
to the petal. A rose under stress can look okay sitting in a florist
cooler, but once it comes out into room temperature, it will droop it's
head. Look for roses with bright green fresh looking foliage, no dark
spots on it's stem and a bloom that is just starting to open, but yet firm
in the center. Shop with that knowledge and enjoy your Valentine's Day.

Contributed by: 

Gail Vander Laan, Florist
www.gvlfloral.com
gail@gvlfloral.com
616.364.8954