Roses for Valentine's Day

Since everyone wants their flowers on one specific day, February 14, a lot of effort goes into getting them there on time. That means producing more than 100,000 roses to be in perfect bloom on the big day. But roses in New England? In February? We all know roses need high temperatures and plenty of sunlight to survive. So, to create the right climate, the greenhouses are heated by three massive steam boilers, and the natural light is supplemented by 1,000 high-pressure sodium lamps. So, between the heat and the lights, the roses are fooled into blooming.

The plants have to be well-fed and pest-free. One of the more unlikely secrets to mass-producing these perfect roses may be a special ingredient for enriching the soil. The latest thing these growers use, as opposed to the old way of using manure in amending the soil, is coconut fiber. It comes in bricks from Sri Lanka and dissolves in water. The compressed brick breaks up into very fine fiber. The rose roots love it because they can penetrate it very easily.

For 'Kardinal' they use an innovative growing technique called bending. The proper way is to bend the rose, making a crease just above the feather leaf, to pop the head off. Then you take the whole stem and push it down as far as you can. The bending encourages new growth. Each bent stem produces two to three new shoots.

By February 6, all the roses are ready for cutting, and then the rush is on. Everyone at Johnson's works around the clock to get the roses out for Valentine's Day.

Once cut, the roses are plunged into a citric acid solution and kept cool to keep them hydrated. Then it's onto the grading table--time to inspect all the roses they worked so hard to produce. Everyone loves long-stemmed roses. And it's here they decide whether they've made the grade. Each rose is hand sorted according to its size into five categories. The most prized roses are those with the long, straight stems. And finally, they're loaded onto refrigerated trucks destined for loved ones around the country.