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 "At a time when someone is
sending you an 'I love you' card, someone is
sending an 'I loved you' card," said De La Flor,
who is preparing bouquets and cards for
Valentine's Day - the busiest and most
profitable time of year for florists - while
making sure other orders are filled for those
who have lost loved ones to COVID-19.
De La Flor, 62, runs De La Flor Florist &
Gardens near Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Three thousand miles away in Los Angeles, flower
seller Fernando Perata has helped over 100
families in the past two months who have lost a
family member to the coronavirus. Many of the
grieving families were long-time clients.
"One day you see that client, the next day they
are gone," said Perata, 23. He described one
mother who for years had been buying flowers for
her children. Recently her son and daughter
arrived to buy roses for their mother's funeral.
Perata works in a flower-selling area of Los
Angeles bordering Skid Row and the Fashion
District, where 3-foot funeral crosses made of
roses and white angel wings of roses on easels
line the sidewalk next to Valentine's Day floral
teddy bears.
The $35 billion floral industry is perhaps more
involved in family joy, grief and milestones
than any other. Flower sellers are approaching
the Feb. 14 Valentine's Day with the U.S.
COVID-19 death toll near 460,000. In many
states, death rates are still at record daily
highs.
Mark Chatoff, 56, CEO of the California Flower
Mall, one of the country's largest markets, in
downtown Los Angeles, said that when California
imposed its first lockdown in March, some
florists closed down because weddings,
graduations, conventions and other big events
disappeared almost overnight. Then came pandemic
funerals.
This month, Chatoff said, "it's both Valentine's
Day and funerals. We've been busy because of the
funerals. It's bitter sweet. We are busy for the
wrong reasons."
Maria Alvarez, 25, a flower seller in Los
Angeles, said her managers at David's Flowers
had been forced to turn away families seeking
funeral flowers because of the Valentine's Day
demand.
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 "It is sad. It is breaking our
heart. It's really hard to tell a family we
can't do flowers for their funeral," Alvarez
said. "We know a lot of them. They send their
family member to the hospital, a few days later
they have passed away. They tell us their
stories. They are broken-hearted."
Alvarez said it's also been tough to tell
grieving people how much funeral flowers cost.
Because of a supply crunch, and huge demand,
prices for funeral wreaths have gone from $85 to
$120 in just a few weeks.
"A lot of these families, they
don't have work. This is a lot of money for
them. We want to help them and give them the
original price, but we can't. Flowers are so
expensive right now."
According to the Society of American Florists,
the biggest trade group representing the U.S.
floral industry, most flowers sold in the
country are imported from Ecuador and Mexico.
The surge in orders in recent months, many of
them online, has strained the supply chain. That
has led to a lack of space on planes and trucks
to deliver enough flowers on time, said
Christina Stembel, founder and CEO of Farmgirl
Flowers, a national floral e-commerce company.
Ken Freytag, 67, has run a family florist firm
in Austin, Texas for over 40 years. He says he's
generally upbeat, but this month has been tough
- not least because his son, daughter and
grandchildren have COVID-19.
Freytag and his almost 50 employees proofread
each card that is to be sent before printing and
attaching it to flower orders.
"A lot of them are sympathy cards," he said. "I
understand what those families are going
through. We are an emotion business."
(Reporting by Tim Reid in Los Angeles; Editing
by Dan Grebler)
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