Roses are red

It's that time of year, Valentine's day! Fellas, make sure to buy a dozen red roses for your lady.

When I was president of Hortus Forum, the undergraduate horticulture club on Cornell's campus, we did an annual rose sale to celebrate the holiday, and I received an email from a gentleman who wanted 35 long-stem red roses, but he was insistent that the plastic water picks be removed. When he picked them up, he boasted, "I'm trying to be sustainable this year". While a noble new year's resolution, I think he missed the point, and by the end of this, you'll see why.

The origin
First, roses are typically NOT grown in the US. Rather the large producers are Colombia, Ecuador, and Ethiopia. These are grown year round, but, the busiest time is undoubtedly the week before Valentine's Day.

Now, there isn't a direct sale of grower to florist, rather, there's a series of middlemen. After the roses are cut in the producing nation, they fly to Europe, Aalsmere Holland in fact. This nation is home to FloraHolland the largest warehouse in the world, at 10,750,000 square feet. Here, they are auctioned off, in addition to about a million other flower lots...daily.

At each flower auction hall, there are four clocks, which indicate 4 auctions going on simultaneously. (courtesy of bunches.co.uk)

This is the warehouse portion of the Aalsmere flower auction. We were on a catwalk for over half a mile. (courtesy of plantsgalore.com)

So, once one of the hundreds of brokers has bought the lot of roses, they are repackaged and send by rail to the airport, where they are shipped to the US about 3 or 4 days before valentine's day.

Next stop: The United States!
But, when they reach the US, they have to go through customs. Being inspected at the Miami Airport. The USDA inspects nearly everything coming into the US at this one airport. Here, they are inspected and repackaged for insect pests, and fungal pathogens. This is to protect the US from invasive species and other devastating diseases that could ravage our economy and food supply.

The flowers are being transferred from a cargo plane to a refrigerated warehouse for inspection and fumigation

Ok, so perfect score! the roses passed inspection. From here, the roses are repackaged onto palettes and then ready to be sent off. Now, roses are very fragile. So, there are some companies that even specialize in transporting flowers.

Boring Botany Lesson of the Blog
Plants put out hormones, just like humans. One common hormone is ethylene, which is used for ripening, and dropping leaves. The hormone is actually, a gas, and flowers tend to be very sensitive to this hormone, and too much ethylene will make these flowers open before Valentines' Day. Plants are more sensitive to ethylene in relation to temperature. The colder the air temperature, the less sensitive the plants are to ethylene. That's why roses tend to be kept in the cooler at your local florist.

Keep on trucking
Armellini trucking is located in Miami, and they specialize in flower transport. What makes them special? well, all of their trailers are refrigerated, and are designed to allow for flowers to be transported cool. These trailers are designed to maximize air circulation throughout the trailer during transport. These are shipped to local distributors, who in turn repackage and distribute it to local florists.

The floor grates here are used to get air exposure to the bottom of the flower stack

The area noted by the red strip is left open for air circulation.
Needless to say, other trucking companies don't find this a useful.

So, from the growers in South America or Africa, to the auctions in Aalsmere Holland, and through the customs in Miami, there's a lot of stops that those roses take to make it to your lover. There are at least two plane rides and a long truck ride that take place, and at least one inspection, and three repackaging processes. So, while leaving those plastic water picks off  makes you feel better, it is by no means makes a serious difference in the process.