Len Busch Roses Offers Tips on Caring for Valentine’s Day Roses

Valentine’s Day is like the Super Bowl for those in the flower business, and at Len Busch Roses in Plymouth, they’re shipping out a little more than a million roses to retailers this season.

“So we’re actually seeing a huge demand right now for flowers,” said Georgia Edgington, lead floral designer from Len Busch Roses.

Demand is one thing, but caring for them and getting them to last is another matter altogether. That’s where Edgington can help. She says to keep your flowers happy, it all starts with the small packet of flower food that comes with every rose purchase at your local retailer.

“It’ll tell you that this whole packet needs to go in, typically about a quart of water,” Edgington said.

After adding the flower food, the next step is to remove the foliage that’s going into the water.

“We don’t want foliage in the water cause that creates a bacteria, so we want to keep that out of the way,” she said.

Georgia Edgington (left) is the lead floral designer at Len Busch Roses.

After all the foliage is removed, she suggests using a pruner or a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the stems of the flowers.

“Give those roses a cut on an angle, because what it does is that allows more surface to take up the nutrients from the preservative that we put in the water,” she said. “It also allows it to stand up in the vase so that it’s not flushed against the bottom of the vase, cutting off its supply of trying to suck some of the nutrients in the water up.”

Should last a week

Next all you have to do is tuck them in the vase, let them fall naturally, do a little bit of “fluffing,” and you have a perfect Valentine’s Day bouquet.

“If you follow that, these roses, and if they were nice fresh roses, they really should be lasting a good week at least,” Edgington said.

Valentine’s Day may just last a single day, but with the proper care, the beauty of roses can brighten the gloomiest of days well beyond February 14.

“They just evoke happiness within us, and we all need that right now,” Edgington said.

Plymouth