Roses are red, violets are blue, flowers need bees and I need you!”

A poetical contribution for my Valentine seems an appropriate beginning for today’s article... assuming he has time to read it.

I’m also presupposing that there are a dozen red roses residing in my very best vase today.

According to legend, the original St Valentine was imprisoned in Rome for illegally marrying soldiers to their loves despite the fact they were forbidden to marry by the emperor.

St Valentine healed his jailer’s blind daughter during his imprisonment and just before his execution he wrote her a farewell letter and signed it with ‘Your Valentine,’ thus symbolising love.

The history of giving the love of your life Valentine’s Day flowers comes from the 18th century custom of sending floral bouquets to pass on non-verbal messages.

The rose is of course the traditional Valentine’s Day flower and red is the colour of passion and romance.

We have to thank the goddess of love, Venus, for this particular tradition.

Legend has it that it was her favourite flower and I certainly wouldn’t disagree with her.

There’s no doubt in my mind that for scent and colour there’s nothing like a rose, and being a Lancastrian lass in origin, red has got to be the colour of my choice.

White roses symbolise unity, so for a truly romantic touch, red roses with one single white is probably perfection.

The problem is that in the fog, sleet and ice of the average Oxfordshire February red roses aren’t too common a sight in our gardens.

So, of course, like so many things, we import our roses from hotter climes, such as Kenya.

With demand now constantly outstripping supply, the price of a Valentine’s Day rose is often three or four times the standard cost and flower producers make 40 per cent of their annual revenue in February and March.

Astoundingly, the production line is now so efficient that flowers picked in the early morning in Kenya can be sold at Europe’s flower auctions the same day.

So there’s no excuse for giving the love of your life a dried-up, half dead looking, buy one get one free special offer from the local garage on your way back from work, chaps. I’m afraid that old trick carries charged symbols of its own.

When rushing out to buy your loved one the imported red and white roses, men (80 per cent of flowers bought for Valentine’s Day are purchased by men) please note that to convey a special meaning there is more than just the colour to consider carefully.

The number of roses also plays an important role in the message, and the number most commonly associated with roses is one dozen.

This number appears throughout mythological and religious traditions, as well arising from the significance of the number twelve in many aspects of nature, twelve month of the year, hours on the clock, signs of the zodiac and so on.

One dozen roses have become a representation of perfection and completeness.

Can a single red rose convey much the same meaning as a dozen?

Well yes, but it can also give your loved one the impression that you’re broke, which is possibly not the symbolism you were striving to achieve with it.

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