Everything's Coming Up Roses

Ed. Note: My darling Marsi is filling in today with helpful hints that could be immediately applied to a St. Valentine's Day cadeau and then, forever after. She is giving us the Valentine present that keeps on giving -- perfect for those who appreciate and celebrate February 14th, and for those who think it's all so silly.

Here then from Marsi, and by extension from moi aussi, Happy, Happy Valentine's Day. . .

        Nothing takes the bloom off the rose -- literally -- faster than receiving a bouquet of gorgeous roses and then having them wilt and die before they ever have a chance to blossom open.

 Years and years ago, I worked as a receptionist for a huge law firm in downtown Denver. Every Monday morning, a bounty of fresh and lovely flowers was delivered to the reception desk on each floor of the firm, and we receptionists were charged with arranging the blooms for our lobby.

Jan Frans van Dael (1826)

One morning, I asked the florist why roses always die before they blossom open.

Still Life: Vase with Roses

Vincent Van Gogh

 He told me that roseheads go droopy because water isn't reaching the flower and the bloom dies of dehydration. The cause? An air bubble trapped at the top of the stem.

His tip? Pierce the stem, all the way through, at the spot where the stem meets the receptacle. (The "peduncle," according to the diagram below.)

The florist suggested using a bent paper clip to pierce, ever so carefully, the stem.

The two small holes will release the air bubble, and water is then free to nourish the bloom so that it does just that: bloom. A simple, elegant, perfect solution.

More voluptuous blossoms from Jan Frans van Dael

And now -- because one can never get too many roses -- below is a special bouquet of roses from moi to vous.

"At middle age the soul should be opening up like a rose,
not closing up like a cabbage."

John Andrew Holmes

"To contemplate roses is to punctuate one's days with poetry." 
Anne-Sophie Rondeau

"Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose." 

Dorothy Parker

"The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns;
the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose." 

Kahlil Gibran

"I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. 

But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: 

No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall." 

Eleanor Roosevelt

(and that's her rose, the Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt)

"The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman
to a rose was obviously a poet;
the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot."

Salvador Dali

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!