Roses Are Red: Valentine Flowers For Your Girl
Published by Alex February 5th, 2007 in Romance, Women. Share This
Any boob worth a girl’s time will not forget the prime ingredient in the valentine’s day tradition—flowers are your key to her heart and loins as well. If you forget them, you ain’t getting the love. Okay, chocolates in a heart-shaped box are kind of on the same page, but the roses are key. Thing is, unless you’re a florist yourself, you need to know that not just any roses will suffice.
On Valentine’s Day proper, you’ll be able to pick up a cheap box of poorly raised long stemmed roses from Argentina for a seeming pittance, from nearly every convenience store and gas station. You heard it here—let the scrubs drop that chump change for those crappy arrangements. If all your lover is worth to you is that kind of afterthought, you’ve got better things to spend your money on anyway.
A romantic man of substance, however, will put forth some time and effort in advance, as well as the dollars to make sure the job is done right. In short: employ a professional.
It is no surprise that this is the busiest time of the year for the floral business, the closer it gets to Valentine’s day, the more hectic it becomes. A few years back I stepped in to do temp work for my friend Elizabeth of Elizabeth Ryan Floral Design in Manhattan. She serves a fairly high profile community, and I mainly worked her phones to take orders. It was insane, and I was amazed at the quality of work they were able to turn out on such high demand. At least 50% of the calls were return customers.
Here are a few tips I picked up from that experience:
• Do not wait until the last minute.
• Do NOT wait until the last minute. It is both considerate to the florist as well as convenient for you to make your arrangements for her arrangement early. You’ll have more time to express your wishes, listen to options and suggestions, and add any special touches you might like to make on her behalf.
• Every florist groans loudly when they take an order for long stemmed red roses. They arte tacky and trite, they usually look terrible in the average vase, and are only truly suitable for dried arrangements. Go for a tight bouquet of short stems for a short bowl - the density of the packing looks spectacular and they’ll hold their shape and color longer.
• Roses are great, but they’re not the only red flower, nor are they the only bud that can look lovely in a Valentine’s Day arrangement. There are a world of options to accompany the roses, petals for contrast and emphasis. There is an entire language of flowers, each steeped in culture. It is possible to speak of your lover’s many virtues with a variety of choices; any florist worth your time will be able to discuss this at length.
• Elizabeth also offers this: “Anything red will cost twice as much as normal, so for instance, this year, I am offering gorgeous full arrangements in a rectangular glass vase in shades of pink; still romantic, but you get the value. A smart girl will know that a gorgeous arrangement is what counts, and red doesn’t mean love any more than any other color. However, yellow, representing friendship, might not work so well.” She offers the following as an example of a great non-traditonal Valentine’s Day arrangement.
• Conversely, perhaps it’s worth giving her something that will hold up more than a few days. You’re married to the long stemmed idea? Fine. Go for a dried arrangement that she can actually keep more than a week. They look wonderful and will be sprayed to last as long as your relationship. Perhaps longer, actually. My grandmother has dried arrangements in her house years after her husband passed on, but they still made her think of him every time she saw them. However, Elizabeth says that she wouldn’t really recommend dried arrangements on V-day, that the occasion is not about practicality, and the gesture might piss women off.
• Cheap and easy: pluck one rose from the arrangement after you are home together, draw her a bath, and sprinkle the petals on the water after it has cooled a bit; women love that kind of thing. Another sweet idea: strew some petals on the bedsheets. It smells nice, looks romantic, and you will be guaranteed some good lovin’ for it. Side note—someone will wind up with a petal or two stuck between the asscheeks.
I’ve never bought a girl flowers on Valentine’s. Never. Ever. Or chocolates.
I’ve had the luck of dating quite a few girls that didn’t really care about the Day - a card sufficed, which is good, because I can’t get into these celebrations that are based entirely on gift giving. Xmas is another one.
Excellent points. My only comment - real rose petals on the sheets are likely to stain light colored bedding with rose juices (been there, done that). They do make fake rose petals, but where’s the fun in that?
I actually went a different route this year with my Fiancee. Flowers are expensive this year, more so than others because ofa multitude of factors dealing with the weather + gouging. So this year I went out picked up a huge pack of Origami paper and taught myself how to fold flowers.
For the cost of time (which I had some of) vs money (which Im getting married and looking for a good place for us, so I have none to spare) I made 2 dozen very cool looking Lillies with neat papers and patterns with pipecleaners as stems and painted the tops of the cleaners to resemble staimens.
Not for all girls, but I know my fiancee would love it more than just picking up a bunch of flowers that die in a week or two.
Jim is a genius. And probably has better eye-hand coordination than most of us.
my lady is big into sunflowers …not exactly SF season right now so i’m going artsy fartsy and making a framed arrangement of them out of felt. sounds cheesy, but it turned out fantastically.
Thad - that actually sounds pretty awesome.
Cut flowers are great and all, but i’d rather have a potted plant if flora is the gift of choice. Cut flowers, pretty as they may be, die. I like plants, and keeping one alive and thriving would bring me happiness for a lot longer than wilting flowers in a vase.
(that being said… i would like a pair of spring loaded tongs and those Le Creuset covered soup bowls in ‘flame’ (hinthint joel) think of the french onion soup i could make us! But i do love to cook.)
susie hit the nail on the head, i think. V-day shouldn’t be a one-size-fits all event …if you know her well enough, your plans and gifts should be a no-brainer.
it doesn’t have to be big, fancy, or expensive. …it just needs to be enough to get her bragging to her girlfriends. (and subsequently garner their jealousy)
Ben, try white or very light pink roses for the petals-on-the-bed trick. They don’t stain.
Sticking with the rose theme, but veering into the potted plant country (which my wife will like much more anyway), I decided on a potted mini rose plant. It’s still very pretty, and if she keeps it watered, it will live on her desk at work for quite a while. The sentiment is there, and the whole thing won’t shrivel and die in a week.
Also, it cost about half the amount of what an equivalent bouquet of cut flowers would have cost. Good times.
I actually don’t like roses at all, I suspect lots of people don’t. Be thoughtful and creative and you’ll be thanked profusely…if you know what I’m sayin.
I’ve been dating a girl for a few weeks, not real serious, but still, flowers are expected. I don’t want to say I love you to her, so roses are out right? But I don’t want to say you’re worth a buck fifty to me, so carnations are out right? Do I venture to the unknown “florist arrangements” offered by the flower websites (she’s in another state for valentines day)? What do I get that says I like you, but that doesn’t include a hand painted fish bowl vase? Also, she has a birthday 5 days before valentines day, so I can’t go with two “hey, just thinking of you” gifts of flowers. Suggestions PLEASE!
Al, I don’t know if they are in season, but I almost always go for irises and lilies when I’m buying flowers. (Frankly, whether I am buying them for a woman or a friend or whatever.) My reasons are twofold: I think irises and lilies are gorgeous, and they both tend to be very striking flowers, the kind that causes people to walk over and want to stuff their faces in the blooms. They’re elegant.
That said, any florist worth their salt will be able to put something together with the in-season materials that gets across the message you want to convey. Go into the store and tell them what you’re going for and let them make some suggestions. There’s a reason florists still exist despite cheap cut flowers in every major grocery store. They’ve got the knack!
Generally speaking, I hate flowers. I like the gesture they represent, but I’d be way happier with a bean burrito from Taco Bell or a book I’ve wanted to read. They just die within days, and it’s so depressing.
Thanks Joel, I’m going with lilies, I’ll let you know how it turns out!
A potted orchid. Blooms a long time, and annually.
And looks like, well, what you’re going for by giving it to her.