Garden Centre

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Roses for my Valentine

Did you know that the flower sellers at New Covent Garden were quaking in their boots last week? Oh yes they were!
Their fear was that the current economic problems, the weakness of sterling against the euro and the number of people being laid off would all hit their Valentine’s Day sales, which might have been down as much as 35% as lovers invested in more durable expressions of desire such as cushions (?) or CDs.
Well maybe so, but I can’t see the appeal of a cushion personally, and if you don’t want to give cut flowers (I, for one, always feel sorry for cut flowers for some reason) what’s wrong with giving a plant? Okay, a rose bush may not be as romantic as a single red rose – especially if given in February, when it looks like a dead twig with spines, but by June it will be covered with gloriously scented flowers that you can take to your loved one every morning. And a nice floribunda costs – believe it or not – about the same price as a single Valentine's red rose.
My favourite Valentine’s rose, however, is this one. It’s a miniature, or patio rose, that we found about to chucked into a skip one July. The garden centre manager (no horticulturalist, he!) said it had been bought in for Valentine’s day, specially forced, but somehow the few that hadn’t sold had been forgotten about and were now dead of neglect. On my way out of the store I fished this one and its brother from the skip. That was at least seven years ago and every year, come May, they reward me with masses of flat-faced bright red flowers. And they didn’t cost me a penny!

Labels: floribunda rose, patio rose, shrubs, valentine's flowers

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:21 AM

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