Sit back, ladies, and await your roses on Valentine’s Day. That smiling delivery man will come to your home or office, hand over that fabulous bouquet, and fill your heart with delight as he does so.
Think not of the insanity that goes into that dozen.
Ultima Florals, in Jackson Heights, Queens, usually has 3 to 5 people working an average day.
On Valentine’s Day, owner George Spetsieris says he can have as many as twenty people on his payroll.
“Valentine’s Day is crazy,” he says. He never stops working on a long-stemmed pink rose arrangement as he’s talking. As for how many roses he goes through: “Thousands,” he says. He stops arranging flowers for a second, putting his palms on the counter top, and gazes towards the ceiling, as if trying to mentally tally up all those flowers. “Just…thousands”. Red is the most popular rose, followed by white, then pink. Lilies, he says, are probably the only other flower that’s ordered regularly for a Valentine delivery. “It’s a beautiful flower,” he says.
George says he can put in 35 hours over the span of two days as Valentine’s Day approaches. Love isn’t his only concern. “My best customer comes in, and says he needs me for a funeral. What am I supposed to do? I have to do it. Death doesn’t know any holidays.”
The only other day that rivals Valentine’s Day for flower orders is Mother’s Day. But George says it’s much easier — and much less expensive — because not everyone wants the same flower. He says the great expense with Valentine’s Day comes from everyone wanting a lovely summer flower in the dead of winter, requiring extra care — and plenty of expensive jet fuel so the pretty things can be flown in.
George says the weirdest bouquet he ever put together merged long-stemmed roses and women’s undergarments. “I put them on stems and arranged them like blossoms,” he says.
“Valentine’s Day is fun, crazy, the eye of a hurricane,” George says. He says when he opened Ultima Florals, back in 1988, he used to get overwhelmed. But “now? Craziness is routine.”
