Happy Valentines’ Day. Unless you’re a bunch of flowers, that is.

Florists love Valentines Day, as it leads to an inevitable boost in sales during the dark winter months. But unless the bunches are to be filled with snowdrops and early crocuses, the chances of those flowers having come from anywhere near home are slim to nil.

Tulips are most often shipped in from the Netherlands at this time of year, which if they’ve been sent by sea rather than air isn’t too bad. Roses, however, must come from much further afield, with many completing a mammoth 6000 mile journey from Ecuador.

Others come from Ethiopia, with London Lite outlining how imports of roses from that country alone have increased 130-fold in the last three years, up from just one ton a year in 2003 to 130 tons a year now.

As always, of course, there’s a greener option if you know where to look. One is to fold your own origami rose, as shown in this video on YouTube. Watch it a couple of times and you’ll see how it works. It’s not nearly so hard as it looks, and when your beloved sees how much of an effort you’ve put into their present, they’ll be bowled over that you didn’t buy them fresh blooms.

Alternatively, how about giving them a little springtime project with a packet of flower seeds or a rose tree to plant in the garden. It’s quite literally the gift that keeps on giving as, rather than have a single bunch of flowers today that will be dead by next week, they’ll receive hundreds of blooms over the next 10 years, and that surely says much more.

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1. Our unproductive flowers prove strangely rewarding
2. Flowers in the garden
3. Flowers. Yes, really – flowers