When I was in college, my roommate Amy and I were on a constant
self-improvement kick. Our major motivational technique consisted of cutting
out pictures of things we liked, taping them up in an area most associated with
each improvement, and attaching an inspirational note.
We had John Travolta (the early years; little did we know we had such classic
tastes) smiling at us from the bathroom mirror asking, “Did you remember to
floss?” A picture of Brooke Shields in her jeans on the refrigerator admonished
us to “Think about that spoonful of peanut butter before you eat it.” And taped
to the coffee table was a picture Amy had taken at a woman’s house who had a
vase of gladiolas — real gladiolas — in her living room. We vowed to live a
life filled with fresh-cut flowers just as soon as we graduated with our
degrees in photo journalism and radio-TV-film, certain tickets to vast
financial rewards. Ah, the idealism of youth.
Despite my failure to become a movie mogul, I still love cut flowers. So does
the rest of America according to figures from the U.S. Census: We spend around
5.9 billion dollars annually on cut flowers, 80 percent of which are imported
from Columbia. While I’m certainly not opposed to spending my lunch money on a
bundle of delphiniums or Gerber daisies or, especially, wildflower bouquets
grown in Blanco at Texas Specialty Cut Flowers, there’s nothing better than
gathering flowers you grew yourself.
I met a group of people last Saturday who probably haven’t spent a buck on cut
flowers in the last 20 years, yet their homes are filled throughout the seasons
with vases stuffed with roses, roses, roses. The attendees at the summer
meeting of the Texas Rose Rustlers are possessed by roses, in particular the
old-fashioned roses like chinas and teas. One woman I met who rustled her first
rose cutting a mere six years ago from alongside her grandmother’s grave, now
has 460 different species growing in her garden and has opened a nursery
outside Beaumont. Two of the original rustlers, Margaret Sharpe and Pam
Puryear, gave a rambling slide show of their adventures since the rustle began
in 1979, which included encounters with shotgun-toting farmers and stealthy
acquisitions under cover of darkness from hesitant rose owners.
Margaret also shared her secret for preserving cut roses. As you gather them
from the garden, immediately drop them in a bucket of water. Bring them inside
and cut the stems under water. When you take the cutting out of the
water, there should be a drop of water suspended on the end of the stem, sort
of sealing it off from the air. Without disturbing those droplets, submerge the
cuttings in a bucket of water up to their blooms and leave them for a full day
to soak up as much water as possible. “If you want them to last even longer,”
says Margaret, “put the bucket in the refrigerator overnight. Just throw the
food out and stick the bucket in there.”
I think Brooke would approve.
This article appears in July 26 • 1996 and July 26 • 1996 (Cover).