Nothing says I love y
FOR some Valentine’s Day is all about hard graft. Staff at Feehily’ florist in Sligo have been working around the clock to get orders ready for the most romantic day of the year.
As proprietor Michael Feehily explains: “We start Monday at 7am and work right through to 4am. We will be back in again at 8am tomorrow morning ( Tuesday).”
Apart from this manic schedule, florists everywhere have to hire in extra bodies to get the jobs done.
Michael says: “I have a team of 15 people and it’s all hands on deck for Valentine’s. Everyone is here full time at peak times and we have to hire in an extra 10 drivers in addition to our usual two.”
Such is the demand for flowers in February that Michael has to travel abroad in January to view stock and choose his orders. He went to Holland three weeks ago to pick the ‘ rolls royce of roses’ for his amorous customers, the ‘ Red Naomi.’
The popular florist explains: “We went to Holland to check the variety and the grade. Roses come in all different grades and varieites. The best rose you can buy at this moment and time is the ‘ Red Namoi.’ It is the best quality in terms of longevity and is absolutely beautiful just to look at.
“A few years ago the best rose was the Grand Prix but it has outgrown itself. The flower might get 7 to 9 years. The red naomi is in its third year of being the best. It is really as good as it gets.”
Growers are also rated on how well they grow their flowers. Feehily’s chose to go with a company in Holland called Marioland that produce 78 million roses a year.
As for the amount of bouquets Michael hopes to sell this week, he says more than a thousand bouquets will go through the doors.
That’s a lot of love for one small shop - and when it comes to romantic gestures, florists can be the first to know about a person’s intentions where a beloved is concerned.
“Sometimes a guy will drop in a jewellery box to be delivered with a bunch of flowers. I get nervous when this happens as with the amount of deliveries we don’t want to lose anything small and valuable,” says Michael, “We might also get the occassional person who would order a hundred red roses or more.”
The standard Valentine’s bouquet though is a dozen red roses.
“Nothing says I Love you like a dozen red roses. That is Valentine’s. A bunch of red roses can be more costly at Valentine’s as they are more popular and demand increases. A bouquet can range from between € 60 and € 100 but our most popular order is red roses in a glass vase of water for € 75,” Michael adds.
Another secret Michael shares is that the men in Sligo tend to leave things to the last minute: “They are great and they get the orders in but we have to pre- empt how many bouquets to get ready as most of the orders don’t come in until the day before Valentine’s. About 15 percent of our orders are in by Saturday, another 10 percent by Sunday but 75 percent will come through on the Monday for the Tuesday.”