Final arrangements: The Flower Shoppe is preparing for the big day
When a tide of men desprately rush to buy flowers for the women they love, The Flower Shoppe stands ready.
Chris Miller, owner and manager of The Flower Shoppe on 202 S. Main St. in Logan, said Valentine’s Day is definitely the busiest one-day holiday at her store.
Miller estimated the shop sells 2,500 to 3,000 roses every year around Valentine’s Day. She said it’s different this year, though, because Valentine’s Day falls on a Monday. Usually the store has more time to make bouquets and other arrangements when it falls on a day other than Monday.
Miller has owned the shop for 15 years.
“My mom actually worked at a flower shop and I started working with her. She trained me,” Miller said. “Then we bought this place and she worked for me.”
The Flower Shoppe has a wide selection of flowers that come from many different places. The store gets the flowers through a distributor from Salt Lake City and they come from for the most part California and South America, Miller said.
“We can order pretty much anything,” Miller said. She said they can get most types of flowers year round because there are so many different providers.
Many customers order roses, the most popular flower at the store, Miller said.
“Most of my customers are men,” Miller said, who usually buy roses.
However, gerbera daisies, which are brightly colored and bigger than regular daisies with longer stems, are also becoming very popular.
While the busiest day is Valentine’s Day, the busiest month is May because of Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and graduations, Miller said.
In addition to Valentine’s Day, The Flower Shoppe also has flowers for special occasions such as weddings, corsages for dances, silk arrangements, balloon bouquets and everyday flowers. It also have planters, sympathy flowers and gift items. It provides the flowers for the display in the Jubilee grocery store in Hyrum.
“I have the best boss in the world. I know because I’ve worked for a lot of people,” Vicky Peterson, an employee of the Flower Shoppe, said.
“It’s a lot of fun to work with the flowers,” Peterson said, who has worked there for about five years.
Miller demonstrated how to put together a bouquet of a dozen roses. First, she started with a water-filled vase and put in leather leaves, (or another type of green) in a circular pattern toward the front. Then she cut the tips off the roses and took the bottom leaves off. If the bottom leaves of the roses are left on, they create bacteria in the water, Miller explained.
She put the roses in one by one so they would be spaced out. Then she added the white filler flowers. To finish, she added a red bow on the front and one can also add a card, she said.
The Flower Shoppe gives a 10 percent discount to students with a valid ID.
The employees take pride in providing exceptional customer service, Miller said.
The Flower Shoppe is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.
-sdobson@cc.usu.edu
Chris Miller, owner and manager of The Flower Shoppe, begins to fill a Valentine´s Day bouque with red roses. The store is preparing for the rush next week. (Photo by Becky Blankenship)