The Sweet Cents of Seduction

The International Rose Business Annual Bonanza

By Pat R. Teague

Shhhhh.

The rose has been an emblem of silence since the ancient Greeks misinterpreted its Egyptian symbolism thousands of years ago.

The Latin phrase sub rosa, a staple of espionage novelists, means “under the rose” and long has referred to secrecy or confidentiality. Historians tell us roses were painted on the ceilings of Roman banquet rooms, to remind those who were sub vino to hold their tongues. And five-petaled likenesses of roses were carved into confessionals: What was spoken there stayed there.

Sound familiar?

When contemporary romantics want to express their sentiments each Feb. 14, they often send roses —fragile, short-lived and silent tokens of love and devotion.

In some ways, the rose industry itself has been a bit secretive. Most of us may not know, for example, that the majority of the gorgeous blooms we send loved ones on Valentine’s Day were cultivated in South America, predominantly in the savanna around Bogata, Colombia, or near Quito, Ecuador, a country that straddles the equator and provides optimal and relatively unchanging growing conditions (intense sunlight, dry air) for the big-headed and pricey Freedom rose we’ve come to covet.

In 2010, about 80 percent of the estimated 198 million roses grown for the American market came from South America, according to the Society of American Florists. The rest came primarily from California, this nation’s most prodigious producer of flowers.

For several years now, the number of American businesses growing flowers and plants has declined annually, for a variety of reasons, including the incursion by big box and grocery stores that are able to charge less for their product.

And, yes, just as the elegant rose and the thorn must co-exist on the same stem, there are painful facets abroad to floriculture: the reported exploitation of some laborers (particularly women); the use of health- and environment-damaging pesticides by some growers; the huge carbon footprint that transporting flowers thousands of miles to market entails; the polluting trucks that ferry flowers to florists; the near-constant refrigeration required; the depletion of aquifers; the loss of arable land to greenhouses sheathed in plastic film.

Few of us are likely to realize, too, that the U.S. government, through tariff breaks in the early 1990s, encouraged an industry in Colombia – at the expense of American flower growers – that represented a more palatable alternative to Washington than battling cocaine cartels and narco-violence abroad, and crime and addiction in this country.

But there are benefits as well to the Latin-flavored floribunda (even if the roses are bred for hardiness rather than fragrance): jobs for the under-employed, especially women who are heads of households; a stable production chain that turns out a world-class product; and profits for American-based growers on foreign soil and florists back here in the U.S.

And there are also South American “fair trade” rose producers like Ecuador’s John Nevado,

Nevado at his business an hour south of Quito

who PBS portrayed in a 2008 documentary as a hero of eco-sensitive, labor-friendly and sustainable floriculture. His product costs more, but some of the profits this acknowledged “capitalist farmer” reaps are returned to workers.

“One of the effects of the fair trade system is that you’re empowering people by not only giving them extra money. They also take classes in rudimentary finance, accounting, project management, to manage the extra money they make,” Nevado told documentarians Deb Tullmann and Cortney Hamilton.

As the program took pains to impart, many European consumers – but not their American counterparts – have been willing since 2002 to spend more to ensure their imported flowers were grown in a fair trade milieu.

But enough of the politics and day-to-day practices of floriculture.

Should we always send red roses on Valentine’s Day? According to the folks at Reiman Gardens at Iowa State University, the color of the rose you send may be a clue to the sentiment you wish to convey. If you’re unsure what your rose means, or could mean, to the recipient, be careful.

A red rose, according to the ISU extension, is meant to infer “Love, I love you.” (That works.) But how about the dark crimson rose? “Mourning.”

And the yellow rose? “Decrease of love, jealousy, try to care.”

A white rose conveys “innocence and purity, I am worthy of you, you’re heavenly, secrecy and silence.” (Hmmm.)

Be sure your roses arrive well-preserved. A withered white rose would suggest “Transient impression, fleeting beauty, you made no impression.” And you’re paying for that?

Speaking of paying, expect to spend a lot more for your red roses during the week of Valentine’s Day than you would the rest of the year.

Just ask Angel Chairez, who with his wife Correne runs the Rose Shack at 1105 S. Rainbow Blvd., Ste. 104, in Las Vegas. With 16 years in the business to her husband’s six, Correne is the shop’s head designer. Angel’s training has been on the job.

“Honestly, I think the best way to get into a flower shop is literally to start working in one,” he advises. “From there, you just sort of get paid instead of paying a school to teach you.”

Chairez says a dozen premium roses costs just under $60 at his shop most of the year (more at other places, he says) but will set you back about 90 bucks on Valentine’s Day. He says the price he pays the South American farms goes up three or four times just before Feb. 14 compared to what he usually owes.

“Our roses come from Ecuador and Colombia. A lot of florists here in town deal with local wholesalers for the roses. We’re very fortunate that we have a lot of accounts, so we deal with a broker instead. It’s kind of just like a middleman.

“We place our order with a broker and they’ll just contact the farm, and the farm will ship it directly to us … and we’ll go pick them up at the airport (twice a week). So … we’re very fortunate. They are usually, on average, about three to four days’ fresher than most shops’ (flowers), just because I don’t deal with wholesalers,” Chairez says.

He says he gets a better wholesale price (most of the year) than some of his competitors, too, and passes those savings on to his customers. “I order such large quantities,” he adds, “that we get a pretty good discount.”

But prices go up for Valentine’s Day, right?

“They do jump quite a bit,” Chairez says. “On average, our wholesalers, the farms, will increase our price about three to four times as much as what we normally pay. We don’t even double what we normally charge. Normally, it’s $60 per dozen. During Valentine’s Day, we normally charge $89 a dozen, so we’re making less (than others do), but it’s by volume. We’re getting a lot more in volume.”

He says last-minute customers also will see the name of his business, and “we have the benefit that we’re the Rose Shack florist … Chances are on Valentine’s Day we will get that customer.”

Chairez says his company hires more help for Valentine’s Day and pays more for shipping, and brings in a 28-foot, refrigerated trailer to keep those scads of roses fresh (at 38-42 degrees Fahrenheit). Inevitably, some of the additional costs get passed on to the consumer, he acknowledges.

“Just like anything, whenever there’s more demand they can charge (him) more. And it trickles on down to the customer. You’ve got to imagine that the farms that (for them) to be able to supply that many roses, they are taken down to the bare minimum (of their stock),” he says.

Chairez believes South American roses are the best on the worldwide market.

“They have that climate. It’s near the equator. So it’s a constant temperature, where the roses really enjoy that … I’ll tell you this: The variety from South America varies a lot, depending on the region that they’re coming from. So it’s depending on the elevation, temperature, all of that, and the type of breed that they have.

“Most farms it takes about four to six years of producing just one strand before they can release it to the market,” Chairez says. “Right now the most common red rose is actually called Freedom.”

So if you want to speak volumes this year to the one you love, take the silent approach: Buy her roses. She’ll get the message.