William Blake knew it all along. Some things never change. Photo Credit: Wikipedia

OK, I did get in a plug for Valentine’s Day ear­lier this week, but really now, can too many hints be dropped, Dear Valen­tine?  I thought not.

Gift giv­ing on Valentine’s Day can be dan­ger­ous busi­ness when it comes to romance and roses, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

First a few thoughts on Valentine’s Day Gift Giv­ing.  It’s a well-known fact that most men give the  gifts they would like to receive on this aus­pi­cious occasion…and who can blame them.  Gos­samer clad pas­sion­ate dreams hover in the mind like sug­arplum fairies wait­ing to dance.

Yeah, that’s a lit­tle flow­ery, but this is a fam­ily friendly venue.  You get the gist.  Day­dream­ing of love is is no crime, though.  It seems like just the right fit  for most any­one, depend­ing on how it comes down.  Some­times Mars Men do it dif­fer­ently than we would on Venus, though.

Now don’t get me wrong, there noth­ing inher­ently defi­cient  in “Howdy, honey.  Here’s some scanty lin­gerie. Gonna try it on now?”  This is made all the more appeal­ing when  accom­pa­nied by a good swift, mas­cu­line kick to the bed­room door.

Now, you know I’m just jok­ing with you, guys.  Still, hur­ried romance does not hold a can­dle to the lin­ger­ing way of love.

I’m speak­ing of savor­ing a dozen (or more) classic long stem roses, fine choco­late and a din­ner for two.  Then come the kisses and cud­dles.  Pas­sion has been known to fully blos­som, as it were, in such august presence–or should I say, presents?  That is, of course, this female’s perspective.

Nat­u­rally, we ladies tend to give our men what we would want, too, like jew­elry for exam­ple. (another lit­tle hint)  More than one lady has given her Valen­tine a box of choco­lates.  Sorry ‘bout that.  Some men have even got­ten roses.  Poor dar­lings, ha!  Ah, but that’s what we love…roses!

Roses are so beau­ti­ful.  In fact, roses are the favorite flower in the United States of Amer­ica.  Yes, you are right.  The Amer­i­can Beauty Rose is the national flower.  Such is our love affair.

Roses have been around for­ever, but they have only recently come to such uni­form visual qual­ity.  Per­fectly formed petals, fan­tas­tic col­or­ing, tight buds and sturdy stems are the high­lights of hor­ti­cul­tural efforts for the past hun­dred years.  The fra­grance is mostly gone now in these arti­fi­cially per­fect spec­i­mens, and the buds often bend their heads in sor­row long before they bloom, but these prize beau­ties are still won­drous to behold when fresh and new.

Com­mer­cial rose grow­ing has now become a huge inter­na­tional indus­try sup­ported by vig­or­ous toxic chem­i­cal inter­ven­tion to keep up the nec­es­sary pro­duc­tiv­ity.  The ever increas­ing demand for roses has inspired grow­ers to seek new places to (pol­lute and) cul­ti­vate roses to pla­cate our rose pas­sions.  Now, roses are plen­ti­ful and inex­pen­sive, even in win­ter­time, because they are grown in South Amer­ica.  As you know, it’s sum­mer down there at the moment.

Beauty sure has its price. Because they are so prone to dis­ease, com­mer­cial and home grown roses are usu­ally sprayed, dusted and doused with fungi­cide and insec­ti­cide cock­tails to fight off the foul destroy­ers.  Good for roses, bad for us.  Added to that,  the syn­thetic fer­til­iz­ers most rose grow­ers use, in the home or in the green­house, con­tribute to pol­lut­ing the streams and caus­ing eutroph­i­ca­tion. The con­t­a­m­i­na­tion con­tin­ues by osmo­sis.  What­ever leaches into  vase water, we dump down the sink and right into our drink­ing water supply.

I used to just love press­ing roses to my face,  in hopes of a slight hint of old fash­ioned rose fra­grance.  Alas, no more.  It’s down­right dan­ger­ous.  I pre­fer not to try to kill myself with flower power.  Our poor liv­ers are already over­loaded with envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins every day.  It’s a cry­ing shame to add roses to the list of ‘don’t touch me,’ because I LOVE ROSES!

I really hate being the party pooper with all this poi­son talk.  But don’t blame me, William Blake started the whole thing with his talk of  roses, worms and the con­se­quences. Some things never change.  Let’s just say from an envi­ron­men­tal stand­point, we can do bet­ter than to buy that inex­pen­sive rose bou­quet at the gro­cery store, florist, or street ven­dor for our loved ones, and we can be more respon­si­ble in grow­ing roses for our home gardens.

Yes, there are some bright spots grow­ing ever more vis­i­ble on the hori­zon for the rose grower and the rose receiver, and not a moment too soon.  Organic roses and sus­tain­ably grown roses are now com­mer­cially avail­able in plants for the gar­den and bou­quets for the beloved.  You can indulge in healthy rose pas­sion respon­si­bly.

You can buy  and grow gar­den roses that do not need chem­i­cals to thrive.  These hardy beau­ties come in a range of col­ors and vari­eties.  There are China roses, tea roses, flori­bun­das and more. Dif­fer­ent vari­eties need dif­fer­ent cli­mates, but there are roses for Zone 4 to Zone 10 that are low main­te­nance, easy to grow and sus­tain­able.  Earth Kind® roses and Buck Roses iden­ti­fied by  Texas A & M Uni­ver­sity and Iowa State Uni­ver­sity respec­tively, are avail­able at fine gar­den cen­ters and online. If you don’t mind a lit­tle kudo, I want to send a shout out to Cham­blee Rose Nurs­ery and the Antique Rose Empo­rium . These two are  nurs­eries that  have been pio­neers grow­ing in the sus­tain­able rose.  You won’t find bet­ter roses for sus­tain­abil­ity than with these two fine com­pa­nies     For more infor­ma­tion check out our arti­cles on Earth Kind® Roses and Sus­tain­able Roses.

For those spe­cial occa­sions you can now buy an Organic Bou­quet which car­ries not one hint of dan­ger, except per­haps from a thorn.

An Organic Bou­quethas all the beauty and none of the chem­i­cals of tra­di­tional com­mer­cially grown roses.  Since rose grow­ing is so expen­sive any­way, and organic rose grow­ing is not more costly, you can buy bou­quets of organic roses for about the same as you would pay in any decent flower shop.  When it comes to shop­ping for cut roses, this one is a no brainer!

As Albert Ein­stein quipped, “A lit­tle knowl­edge is a dan­ger­ous thing.  So is a lot.”  (I won­der if he thought that up right after dis­cov­er­ing the laws of rel­a­tiv­ity.)  At any rate, whether you knew a lit­tle or a lot about roses before, you can now claim to have added to your infor­ma­tion base some rose his­tory, rose poetry, knowl­edge of the long term effects of all these roman­tic rose remem­brances, and the avail­able alternatives.

Oh, I didn’t for­get about Blake.   For our poetry lovers,  here is what William Blake shared in his Songs of Expe­ri­ence as the 39th plate.

The Sick Rose

O Rose thou art sick.
The invis­i­ble worm,
That flies in the night
In the howl­ing storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crim­son joy:

And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

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