Do a little digging, and you’ll find a wealth of collected folklore on the blooms that most represent love, passion, and friendship—and, while there is so much historical context to tap into, coloring within those finite, traditional lines can remove the nuance inherent to our closest relationships. On Valentine’s Day, I want to go far beyond roses and romance to celebrate all relationship types and acknowledge those who are happily single, longingly single, lovers, still-figuring-it-out couples, palentines, or people thinking about their littlest valentines (my personal favorites to spoil).
When it comes to arranging and choosing flowers, my advice is to avoid the obvious flowers: pink and red roses. The demand in February jumps so significantly that flower growers and distributors are often storing flowers in coolers "dry packed" for, sometimes, up to three weeks. The flowers we get are often smaller and of a lower grade than an average week. A slightly more unusual rose color like coffee break, Nina red, or shimmer can offer beauty and dimension. We, of course, will grab the best blooms first and do our best to keep everything lasting long, but there's no way to avoid the severe uptick in demand and strain on the supply chain. And in Colorado, everything is being shipped in because there's almost nothing available locally—and very little, even, within the U.S.
My advice is to have your delivery set a day or two before the holiday. You'll get the better pick of flowers and communicate to your partner or palentine that you are thinking of them ahead of time, outside of the designated day itself. Remain open to other colors and flower choices, like tropicals, or a lavender arrangement with tulips, hyacinth, and ranunculus as they are much more seasonally available.
We've created four new low-rose arrangements for this years' offerings, a new dried arrangement, and several new gift sets for the different types of valentines we love to celebrate: a Palentines Set with a mini dried bouquet, Indulge (honestly, mostly chocolate!), Low-key Lover with pampering body care products, and Little Love with fun goodies for kids. We also have a selection of chocolate, including our local chocolatier Temper's box of four bon bons.
Enjoy, loves—and may the holiday be full to the brim with connections of all varieties.
Note: Beet & Yarrow will be closed on February 15.