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Where do those Valentine’s Day flowers come from?

February 15th, 2007 Sarah - Alicia Ashman

Well, in some cases, California.  Also, Holland.  And, increasingly, Ecuador.

Now that Valentine’s Day has come and gone once again, perhaps you’ve been wondering…where do all those flowers come from?  Author and gardener Amy Stewart has a fantastic new book called Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in the Business of Flowers.  Ever stopped to wonder where those dozens of roses that Flowerama sells come from?  Stewart tells you, and she leaves no part of the story untold: from breeding and growing, to shipping and selling, all the details (not all of them pretty) are here.

Along the way she also examines flowers as a global commodity.  When she sees roses being hand-dipped into fungicides before shipping in Ecuador, she wonders about the health of the workers and their economic well-being.  There are no easy answers there, as she learns: “‘If you go home and buy California roses,’ one [Ecuadorian] grower told me, ‘you are not supporting an American worker.  You are supporting a Mexican worker who is away from his family.  If you buy Ecuadorian roses, you are allowing an Ecuadorian family to stay together.’” (p. 153.)

No worries that you’ll be turned off flowers.  Even after all she learns, Stewart concludes her book when a bouquet is delivered to her…and she’s still “swept up by the romance of it all.”

Entry Filed under: Nonfiction