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Fresh Look - rethink roses
February 12, 2008

*This is a reposting from last year. I think it is just appropriate now… I agree with CindyC’s sentiment from yesterday that love seems more precious when it is not forced to be celebrated on a national love day. But if you still love roses on Valentine’s day, read on…
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O, my Luv’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June….

Surely when Robert Burns rhapsodized about the red red rose in the eighteenth century, he did not imagine that one day the symbol of his love would be soaked in insecticides, fungicides, growth regulators, and other toxic chemicals. Takes the romance right out of the roses, doesn’t it?

(image: courtesy of Cordillera Peoples Alliance)

I was a happy rose receiver and giver until I actually visited a rose farm/factory in Ecuador a few years ago. In 2000, I spent a month in Ecuador taking Spanish lessons and going on “cultural field trips” with fellow students. One weekend, a teacher at the school took us to visit a rose farm because he was proud of the fact that roses were one of Ecuador’s top export businesses. That was where I saw the dirty reality behind the beautiful roses I had received and given over the years. In the rose fields near-by, a couple of men were spraying some sort of liquid on the plants, both wearing gasmasks. When asked what they were doing, our tour guide explained that the workers were giving the roses vitamins and medicine to make them healthy. Vitamins? Medicine? I was glad that my pharmacist never put on a gasmask when she handed me my vitamins and medicine! Later I learned that they had to regularly spray a cocktail of pesticides on the rose plants to ensure their “pristine and flawless” presentation. Turned out getting their fingers pricked by thorns was the least of the workers’ worries. They would get headaches, nausea, and dizziness from constantly breathing in the chemicals, along with a plethora of other serious ailments brought on by the toxic environment.

In a very twisted sense I wish I had never seen the rose factory in Ecuador, because after I came back from South America, I could never look at roses the same way. Instead of seeing romance and love, I saw gasmasks and clouds of pesticides. In this Valentine’s week, 200 million stems of roses will be sold. About 70% of cut flowers sold in the US are grown overseas where the labor is cheaper, the climate is more temperate, and the regulation on pesticide and chemical usage is sloppier. So chances are the perfect bouquet you are sending or receiving on 2/14 came from a factory similar to the one I visited in Ecuador.

Sorry to be such a downer. What’s one to do if your loved one really likes getting flowers? Fortunately aside from some local florists (and don’t forget your farmer’s market), there are now a few online outfits that sell and deliver organic flowers that have not been doused with cocktails of synthetic chemicals. Last week I went online and did a little research. The interesting thing I have discovered is that your out-of-pocket cost for organic flowers is not necessarily greater. In fact it is cheaper for example to order from OrganicBouquet than from many big national chains. I have sent my mom and mother-in-law roses from OrganicBouquet before. They both loved the vibrant colors and fresh aroma. The fact that they did not have to take in a cocktail of pesticides and growth hormones certainly is a big relief

Some online sources for organic flowers are:
www.OrganicBouquet.com
www.californiaorganicflowers.com
www.diamondorganics.com

CindyW

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