Something purple for your desk

I will never forget the first time my husband sent me flowers. It has been over 11 years since the first time I was surprised at work with a bouquet of flowers from him.

We had been on a couple of dates, and he knew that I loved the color purple. He sent me the most beautiful bouquet with varying shades of purple to my classroom my second year of teaching. The card read, “something purple for your desk.” They were sent for no other reason than he liked me.

Not only could I not believe he was sending me flowers, but I was so surprised he remembered me mentioning my favorite color in passing. A year to the day we met, September 16, he proposed to me and took me to a variety of places we had been during our first year together. At each location, he gave me a purple rose. By the time he asked me to marry him, I had a bouquet full of purple roses and a ring.

Purple flowers from our wedding on June 22, 2013. (Photo provided by Megan Rathz)

Over the years, the guy that I had a couple of dates with that sent me purple flowers became my husband. I would be lying if I said I have not been spoiled over the years with my share of flowers – something that is truly one of my most treasured gifts. In a way, you could say it is my love language. He realizes this about me, and not only does he make a point to purchase flowers, he educates himself on what to look for when purchasing a bouquet.

Flowers are not cheap, and if you’re going to spend the money on them, you need to make sure to get the biggest bang for your buck. This is the time of year with Valentine’s Day that we are flooded with flowers when we walk into the grocery store. If you are like me and purchase flowers on a regular basis, you cringe at how the supermarkets capitalize on the holidays like Valentine’s Day by raising their prices, but that is beside the point I suppose. The question is, how do you choose the best bouquet?

What should you look for when you’re in the grocery and looking for a bouquet yourself? To start with, you will want to make sure that you look for the tightest looking flowers you can find. I used to look first at the colors, but I have trained myself over the years to look for which flowers look the healthiest and have the tightest blooms before even selecting. Some days, I am completely surprised because it will be something I was not expecting to purchase or a color that I would not typically buy, but because of the way it looks and the health of the flowers, I will select a certain bouquet over another for the sake of longevity.

My husband jokes that nobody can repurpose a bouquet more than me. You give me a half-dead bouquet with a few stems that still have life and I will whip that bad boy into a brand-new bouquet. It is amazing what a smaller vase and trimming back some of the dead blooms and some fresh water will do for a dying bouquet of flowers. I have been known to get easily two or more weeks from a store bought grocery bouquet, simply because I take care of them.

Fresh water is essential. It sounds like common sense, but you’d be surprised how many people receive a bouquet of flowers and leave it in the stagnant water for days on end and they are surprised at how short they last, and the smell of the water begins to have a rancid odor. I change the water on all of my bouquets daily.

A beautiful bouquet of my husband’s creation. (Photo provided by Megan Rathz)

I always steer clear of the mixed bouquets at the grocery store. It is too hard to gauge the overall health of the bouquet because typically they do not last as long as a bouquet that is the same flower and has tight blooms. When I say tight blooms, I’m referring to bouquets where the flowers are not completely opened because the more open the flowers in the bouquet are, the longer they have been alive, and hence, the shorter life it’s going to have in a vase at your house.

Most recently, my husband did something completely unexpected. Rather than purchasing a pre-made bouquet from the florist and sending it, he made his own. It was the best surprise ever. I walked into my classroom on a Friday morning and turned on my light to see one of the most gorgeous arrangements I’ve ever seen. He went to the grocery and purchased seven individual bouquets and made his own gigantic arrangement. To this day, besides my purple flowers, it is the most beautiful and special arrangement he’s ever given me because I knew every single flower in it, he hand-selected it, and it was absolutely beautiful.

Give a copy of this column to your spouse as a friendly nudge to go buy you some flowers. Nature is speaking to us and giving us a chance to show others we love them and tell them they are special. Are you listening?

Megan Rathz is a wife, mother and teacher. She says everything she has ever learned in life came from her Master Gardener mother.