Pin wrote a simple tutorial on his roses arrangement a few days ago, which prompted me to share with you about “guard petals” on roses. There seems to be a huge misunderstanding on these guard petals.

Many of my customers dislike guard petals and thought that roses with guard petals aren’t fresh. For the past 2 decades, I have received numerous complaints from our customers accusing us of selling wilting roses whenever they encountered these suspicious-looking guard petals around the roses.

Even today, many still doubt the freshness of a rose if it has guard petals on it. Now, it’s time for me to share with you the truth behind these guard petals.

All roses that grow from this planet come with guard petals, no exception. These are the outer layer petals that need to be removed from the roses prior to “using” them. The role of guard petal is to protect the rose buds from bruising during the entire harvesting process at the rose farms to handling of the roses at your local florists. Thus, it is essential for these guard petals to stay intact to ensure that the roses get all the protection it needs.

Guard petals often appeared charred and wrinkled at most edges of the petals, especially for red roses. Depending on the colors, most roses are normally accompanied by charred and wrinkled dark brown, black, or green guard petals.

1. A red rose with guard petals intact.

2. Removing the guard petals

3. Ready to use rose with all guard petals removed. (Notice the contrasting white tip from the removed guard petal? That is also a sign of freshness.)

One more useful tip on these guard petals: You can actually determine the freshness of a rose just by peeling off a guard petal.

If the rose is fresh, you’ll be able to peel off the petal easily and it (the peeling) comes with a crisp sound. A not-so-fresh rose would have guard petals that appear to be crumpled and softened. When you try to peel it off, the peeling won’t produce any cracking sound at all.

That being said, you might want to practice some TLC while peeling off the guard petals less you accidentally peel off the real petals of a blooming rose.

My previous post, 5 Reasons Why You Should Send Flowers in a Vase has gained a few insightful comments from a friend, Marcus. He posed a few interesting questions regarding the feasibility of sending flowers in vases and affordability of flowers in this country. I believe these are good indication of the doubts that many of us have, since there are many of us who are unaccustomed to sending flowers in vases. I’ve shared Marcus’ email comments and also my take on the issues that he has brought up. (Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Marcus!)

Marcus:
I dunno.. coz i still don’t get the idea of sending flower in vase.. ~?~

Me:
Hi Marcus, you’re not the only one here. Most of us Asians are not used to sending flowers in vase. It’s a cultural thing. Hand-tied bouquets have been here for 20-30 years. It’s gonna take some time to shake off the notion that only hand-tied bouquets are appropriate when sending flowers. =)

Marcus:
Apart from that, just a quick review of what’s in our everyday living.. we seldom have vase in our house because most of us will not spend money filling them with flowers everyday. Flowers aren’t cheap anyway due to geographical factor if compared to Europe and other cooler countries.

Me:
Yup, it’s true that most of us will not spend money buying flowers unnecessarily just to fill the empty vases in our house (assuming we even have a vase at home). Like I said before, buying flowers “out of the blue” just to put them in our home is not common at all in Malaysia. It’s mostly because of our culture. We only buy flowers when we need to, say for our loved ones, our best friend’s graduation, or as gifts of congratulating new businesses or condolences. We seldom buy flowers for our own house on normal days just because its not necessary.

My point is, yes, I agree that not many of us will buy flowers everyday to fill them with our empty vases. However, it is a myth that flowers are more expensive here in Malaysia compared to western countries. Contrary to popular belief, buying flowers here are in fact much cheaper than buying flowers in other countries, unless you get the imported ones.

Cut flowers are not expensive here as most local florists get their supplies from Cameron Highlands and to further illustrate my point, let me give you an example of the price. On normal days (meaning no big occasions eg. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day), one stalk of local rose or carnation = RM1.00 each (at most RM1.50 each). The “expensive” part is when you need a floral designer/florist to design, arrange, and deliver the flowers for you. Even so, you can always request the florist to work within your budget. Most professional florist will try their best to satisfy your demand as long as it is not too outrageous.

Sending flowers in vases are more environmental friendly and convenient for the recipients in terms of taking care of the flowers. Flowers in hand-tied bouquets last approximately 3-5 days, while flowers kept in vases can last up to 7 days or more, depending on the type of flowers and the care and conditioning that the flowers receive. Plus, the recipient gets a new vase to begin with so that she can get flowers for herself too!