Valentines Day
Noeline and Henry Sinclair have been married for 57 years and for over 20 of those years Henry has wished his wife a happy Valentine’s Day with a single rose picked from their garden.
And this morning was no exception. Now residents at Cameron Court, Henry presented his sweetheart with a red rose from the rest home’s gardens.
“Valentine’s Day wasn’t much of a to-do when we were first married. Nowadays it keeps the florists busy, I suppose, but Henry has always brought me a rose out of our garden,” Noeline said.
The couple have always been keen gardeners, first tending to half an acre at Wakanui, before moving into Ashburton and taking over a “town-sized” garden.
“We’ve always had roses in the garden,” Noeline said.
If you are the romantic kind, given to dishing out red roses on Valentine’s Day, the cost of your love might be sorely tested this year.
But for the rose grower, this Valentine’s Day has been bonanza time, with quality flowers making top dollars at the Christchurch flower market.
Kakariki Flowers owner Ian Harvey described the season of love as “amazing at the market”.
“The supply of flowers was quite short and prices were really, really amazing,” he said.
Mr Harvey sent 1000 bunches of 10 red roses to Christchurch ahead of today’s flowerfest and said he could have sold that number many times over.
After the market closed, Mr Harvey said he heard of people paying up to $120 for 12 red roses in Christchurch.
Prices were significantly lower in Ashburton, he said.
Yesterday his focus moved to the local market, ready to fill the countless orders stacked up on his workbench.
He described the number of orders as “not over the top, but on a par with last year”.
Flower deliveries would begin this morning and were likely to continue throughout the day, he said.
Red roses were now facing competition from coloured roses or from bouquets of other flowers as a token of love and affection, Mr Harvey said.
Sales of Valentine’s Day roses had been affected to some degree by local supermarkets and the Warehouse stocking roses imported from India, he said.
Florist Kerry Mills was rolling up her sleeves and clearing the decks yesterday to begin working on preparing for today’s flower delivery rush.
“We’ll be starting around 8am and we’ll keep going until all the orders are out, probably after 5.30pm,” she said.
