In a country that recently has had a lot to hate Belizeans found a lot of love to share on Valentine's Day today. Roses, chocolates, cards, and radio requests were the order of the day. Keith Swift went looking for that one thing most in demand, roses he found lots of them at Florasol.
Today, Valentine's Day, love was in the air quite literally in downtown Belize City on these balloons and you could also quite literally smell it at flower shops like Florasol where February 14th is the busiest day of the year.
Soli Arguelles, Florasol
"Valentine is the busiest day of my life, busiest. In any flower shop they will tell you that you live for Valentine's Day."
Love came in the smell of these purple gladioli, yellow chrysanthemums, carnations, the classic red rose and many other varieties of exotic plants in just about every imaginable color and every imaginable smell for every imaginable taste.
Veteran florist Soli Arguelles says it is different strokes for different folks.
Soli Arguelles,
"We have some that want just a rose to say a statement. We have some that want something exquisite, exotic, extravagant, so it takes all kinds to make a world and I please them all."
But for all the arrangements and combinations, there is one mainstay in universal demand today and that is the rose. The color of the rose may vary from red to peach to yellow but Arguelles concedes nothing says I love you like a rose.
Soli Arguelles,
"A rose by any other name would not be as nice so I am sure they enjoy just taking a rose to their mother, to their wife, or sometimes they make a statement by sending a rose to somebody that they are trying to admire or a girlfriend or a proposed girlfriend."
Arguelles estimates she will go through 3,000 roses before today is over. Most of the flowers and the roses are imported from Guatemala and Mexico.
