Valentine’s Day or not – who doesn’t love a bouquet of roses? Roses are readily available all year long – I picked these up at the local deli! They are quite a hearty fresh cut flower if you treat them right when they come through your door. If you know how to condition and care for them -before you make a flower arrangement with them- they can last beautifully for weeks on end! If you are throwing a party and want them to look their best for an event, purchase them 2-3 days in advance. I know that seems scary, but they’ll look fantastic once they have a few days of drinking fresh water in them. 
Roses are beautiful no matter the shape, but did you know the cone shaped ones (like the coral ones) will never truly open up all the way (like the variegated yellow-red roses) that have a flat top? The wider/flatter they are across the top when you buy them closed/tight, the more full they will open up – like a garden rose. I like both shapes, but I like to keep this in mind when I am arranging flowers. The shape will help me determine how much breathing space I should leave around the bud for when it opens up in a day or two.
When you get your roses home, fill a temporary flower bucket with water. Strip all the unnecessary leaves and thorns off of the stem of the rose. Give the flowers a cut on a 45 degree angle before you put them in your bucket. If you want to speed along the process of the flowers opening up, make this first drink of water quite hot. Let them drink until the water has cooled to room temperature. THEN start arranging your flowers in a different vase with fresh cool water that has a pump or two of flower food in it. Each time you move the flowers in and out of water give them a fresh cut. They develop a seal when they dry out that makes it impossible for them to drink water without a new little snip. Make sure leaves are not submerged in the water of your vase – this will cause deterioration of the leaves and bacteria to form. It will kill off your Roses too quickly. 
Images in this post are my own with exception of the two red roses exhibiting roses with steeples up and roses with steeples down.
