All you Need To Know About Red Roses For Valentines

The Flower Of Love

With Valentine’s being weeks away, Urban Design Flowers with the help of Chrysal wants to make sure you have all of the information regarding your Valentine’s flowers at your fingertips!  To continue our countdown to February 14th, here is all you need to know about red roses!  Below are two very important things you must know. 

 Buds accumulate carbohydrate stores to ensure bloom opening

Bud size increases.  Customers love those larger heads!

Foliage tissues are actively storing sugars, water and hormones to guard against harvest stress

Varieties with a high petal count require an open cut stage to develop

Roses must arrive to stores at stage 3-4 for 100% development

Rose blooms cut too tight mean buds will never open

For years, we diligently trained them to accept bullet tight, over-peeled roses as “fresh”.  Now they are confused on how to judge flower quality.  As a flower expert, it is your privilege and responsibility to educate your customers!

The sweeter the fragrance the shorter the vase life.  Breeders choose varieties with long vase life so don’t be alarmed if the fragrance isn’t as sweet.

 Groom guard petals if needed, otherwise leave intact.

 Removing guard petals loosens the bud and promotes opening

Peeling guard petals triggers the onset of ethylene production.  Ethylene reduces vase life and hastens death in flowers.

Ethylene production starts at the point where the petal attaches to the Calyx

Peel ONLY if guard petals show blemishes or disease problems.

Guard petals with damaged spots, creases, streaks or tears

Guards petals that are excessively black—so much so, it impairs salability

Guard petals with raised blister look of Botrytis

Specialized cells on the underside of foliage pull solution up to the stem into the bloom.  Remove only those leaves underwater (to control solution pollution).  See our previous blog piece “Should you strip your roses?“ about the effects of stripping roses of thorns and foliage.