Book Review: Flower Confidential

Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers by Amy Stewart. Did you think that we really received our flowers from a greenhouse in Western Massachusetts ... or perhaps from Atlanta or Nashville? Think again.

From the Washington Post review: "Our blooms are more likely to have been raised in high-altitude flower factories in Ecuador or Colombia, dunked in chemicals, flown to Miami and distributed to wholesale markets around the country. A rose cut on a Monday morning in the shadow of a snow-capped volcano might find its way to a Manhattan florist the following Friday, and then be good for a week or more with a little care. In your local supermarket, you will find roses completely devoid of fragrance -- pretty in a stiff and uniform sort of way, but not the earthy roses of the garden."

And Americans are not the largest consumers of cut flowers but are 17th behind consumers in many other countries around the world.

If you are a lover of flowers ... or if you love to give them ... OR if you hate the whole romantic idea of flowers at all ... then this book will interest you.