By Angel Perkins Editor
Some say love is in the air and others say that love is in bloom, particularly around Valentine’s Day, and especially if they are a florist.
Each year around this time, nearly 110 million roses are sold within a three-day period, specifically for the holiday.
Some 60 percent of the country’s roses come from growers in California but for the February holiday, demand requires that most of them travel thousands of miles because they are grown out of the country, the majority, from South America. A whopping 73 percent of men include flowers with gifts to their loved ones for the special day and 15 percent of women in the United States will even buy flowers for themselves on Feb. 14.

Roman history claims that the red rose was the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love and the color red stands for strong feelings (which is why a red rose is now considered to represent love). Flower retailers in the Bourbon area know to plan ahead for the Valentine’s Day rush, and anticipate the crowds wishing to express their heartfelt sentiments by ordering much more than they usually do.
“Last year I ordered about two thousand (roses) the majority of them red,” explained Linda Stevens of Heaven Scents Flowers and Gifts. She said that most of her pre-orders are for roses or fresh arrangements that include them, and that most of those that order in advance are her Amish customers. “They are all very thoughtful people,” Stevens said. “Others wait until the very last minute and we’ve had them lining up to the door (from the sales counter).”
Eric Waggoner of Waggoner’s Flower Shoppe and Greenhouse (formerly Waggoner’s Greenhouse) in Etna Green has seen a fair swell of holiday orders coming in even though the business just opened in August.
“We’re doing pretty good,” Waggoner said. “We’ve got about 35 to 45 orders (for the Valentine’s Day holiday alone) and the majority of them are roses.”
Last year a blizzard hit the area, trying to compromise delivery but the employees of Heaven Scents Flowers and Gifts, that has been in business for almost 21 years, weren’t thwarted. “We delivered in four-wheel drives and got every order out on time,” Stevens said proudly.
Normally, the business runs out one delivery vehicle and keeps four employees around at any given time. For the holiday, they built their forces to have five vehicles bringing gifts of love and 10 employees to make it all happen.
Additional preparation for them includes extended hours for Thursday as well. Heaven Scents will open an hour earlier (at 8 a.m.) and close an hour later (6 p.m.) than usual.
“We’ve had people  waiting outside for us to open and once someone came around midnight (on Feb. 13) because he knew we were in here,” Stevens said, amused.
Waggoner said whether or not his business will be open extended hours depends on the flow of customers. He has however, planned for an additional five employees and to run three, rather than one, delivery vehicle to assure their orders arrive to their destinations as planned.
And though it often takes hard work and long hours to make it all come together, sometimes it’s just as fun to be on the giving end of the Valentine’s Day gift as being on the receiving end. Stevens explained that one year a customer asked for four dozen roses to be arranged in a single vase, a large one nonetheless, but one that because of the abundance of flowers, became very heavy.
“You could barely pick it up,” she laughed. “We made another one like it later and put it out, but thought, ‘nobody else will want something like this’ (and roses don’t necessarily come cheap) but we sold it right away.”
Another over-the-top, exciting Valentine’s Day gesture she took part in was one that involved a proposal. “He gave me the diamond ring and I was so afraid I would lose it,” she said. “We put it in the center of the rose and tied a little string around it ‘just in case.’ I really wanted to see her response; I was so excited but we weren’t allowed in the back. We had to leave it at the front office.”
Though she didn’t get to see the woman’s expression or hear the reply to the question written on the card, she did eventually get to make all the flower arrangements for the couple’s nuptials. Even with love in bloom and florists and other retailers planning ahead, sometimes months in advance, research shows that in the United States, 64 percent of men don’t make any plans or purchase their Valentine’s Day gifts until Feb. 14.