Arranging the Roses
You open the front door and by gosh, there is a long box sent FedEx addressed to you. If you are lucky enough to have your sweetheart with you every day, believe me, you are lucky enough. Many of us share our love one with the military, government work overseas, and organizations that keep the world safe . I am one of them. My wonderful husband keeps us safe. And not just America, though his heart is red, white and blue. He keeps us safe, I mean, the world. Global peace drives him and he makes a difference in a better way every day in his work. So I share him with the world. We are united forever in our love and commitment to each other. We are as one. Though there is distance between us, our heartstrings go across the globe. So on Valentine’s Day, there will be a FedEx box at my door. And inside will be roses. Because I am a designer, my husband sends a box of flowers, not a prearranged vase of flowers. He knows my passion for design.
Not everyone has this talent, my daughter tells me. So I want to share with you the most basic steps that you can use to make your flower arrangement look like a pro.
If you receive a dozen red roses, the first thing you do is. Prepare a sugar-clorox mix of one-half cup granulated sugar and two teaspoons of clorox in a two-gallon pail of warm water. This is basic to the longevity of the roses. The sugar keeps the roses developing and the Clorox prevents bacteria from forming and clouding the water.
Once you have your water ready, submerge your roses into the bucket of water. Take a sharp knife and cut the stem while holding it under water and cut at a 45 degree angle. Leave the roses sitting the water. Continue this with all your roses.
Find the vase you want to accent your roses. This is the trick you will want to remember. You can easily arrange your flowers and keep them standing up in the vase, by using clear tape. Yep, that’s right. Take the tape and zigzag it across the top of vase. Just make sure the top of the vase is dry when you put it on.
Now go back to your roses and strip them of their thorns and leaves, leaving just a few leaves close to the head of the rose. You can use a paring knife for this; however there is a special knife that we use in floral design. If your flowers came with filler foliage, such as baker’s fern, you will want to clean the fuzz off of its stems as well. Once this is completed, it is time to kiss the rose, as I say. The outer petals of the rose are called guard petals. They will look a little wilted or brown at the top edges. Just pull them of off. Your roses will look like a bud or tight rose. Don’t worry, they will open up. You then cut your roses’ stems to 1 and 1 half times the height of your vase.
You are ready to create. Crisscross the stems of baker’s fern, if you have it and insert into your vase. If not, start by inserting your first stem of roses into the vase, and then place the next stem across it and continue crossing each new stem over the last one until the glass is full. This is done between the spaces in the tape. You will see the stems crisscrossing in the water of the vase. This keeps the flowers from moving and the tape helps give a newbie a guide of arranging at an angle. Once you have placed all the flowers in the vase, you can move them a little to put your finishing touch on it. And you are done.
Remember your flowers love water. Give them plenty in the morning and evening.
And one more little tidbit, just because you have a dozen red roses , you don’t have to keep them all together.. I usually make a tall vase of six and then make a round design with the other six. This is arranging them tight in a low vase. Roses like to touch. And this design is a great accent on an end or foyer table.
If you ever noticed, you see this style quite a bit on the morning news at the anchor desk of the hosts. Wishing you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day. And please keep our love ones overseas in your prayers and thoughts. Though they are miles away, their hearts never left home. God Bless America!
With Valentine’s Day approaching, I can’t help but think of my favorite romantic author. He writes love stories from the heart. He makes it all believable and you fall in love all over again with love. Nicholas Sparks ! He is not a native of North Carolina but he reminds me of a saying my husband told me when we met. ” I may not have been born in North Carolina, but I got here as soon as I could”. Nicholas Sparks resides in New Bern NC. This little town,in fact, is where my husband and I spent part of our honeymoon. A beautiful, quaint, easy living city on the Neuse and Trent Rivers .
It is the birthplace to Pepsi. And Pepsi has its own museum you can visit. My husband and I visit New Bern when we are passing through traveling to Atlantic Beach, NC. And in our last visit, my husband took me on the tour by Nicholas Sparks’ home. I know, of course, we didn’t see Nicholas, but the ride on the river was worth it all, plus seeing his home was a treat. When Nicholas Sparks’ book , The Notebook was made into film, my girlfriends and I had to see it. We were then forever fans of anything Nicholas wrote . And he has continued to write many love stories . When his book, Nights in Rodanthe was being filmed at the Outer Banks, I had friends who auditioned to be extras and were able to say, ” I was in a movie with Richard Gere.” You can still see the cottage , Serendipity, but it has been purchased and moved to a safer location. After Hurricane Bill, it nearly crumbled into the ocean. In the movie it was called The Inn At Rodanthe.
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. I enjoy creating floral designs for sweethearts. It is much like a wedding. A young man comes in to order flowers for a new girlfriend. He tells how special she is, her beauty, her smile,and her love . You know as a designer your design reflects his love. You 
Moments later, you look up and an older gentleman is ordering his flowers. He has been with his wife who he calls his sweetheart for fifty years. He talks of her smile, her beauty and her love for him. And you know his love must shine through the design. You personalized it with his love for her in your thoughts. A favorite story I must share happened 15 years ago. I was busy working on arrangements . I finished most of my orders and one of the coworkers gave me a message. A customer had requested for me to design an arrangement for his wife. He didn’t care about the cost. He said she was the puzzle piece he had looked for. He felt like the day he meet her he had come home. I asked , what is her age, how long have they been married, what are her favorite colors and flowers. He hadn’t given that information and he hadn’t left a number to call back. He just said he would pick them up at five. I was nervous. He had said the cost wasn’t an issue. I started creating and then hesitated, wishing, I knew more about this lady. I took a deep breath and thought, what would I want for Valentines flowers. I started again and thought of my husband, and created the design of my dreams. Finished, it sat on the case all afternoon. Customers ooh and aah for it. Five o clock and we are closing and still no man shows to pick up the arrangement. I’m worried. I know it is closing time. It had been a very long day and yet, I couldn’t leave without delivering this arrangement. I called my husband and told him I would be late. He said, I’ll come down and wait with you and later we can celebrate with dinner. Thirty minutes later, still no customer pickup. I opened the shop door to my husband and he said Happy