AMY JO BROWNE, VALENTINE PETAL PUSHER
 Durell Godfrey |
(2/14/2008) “Peach is my favorite color rose. I hate red,” said Amy Jo Browne the other day at Wittendale’s, which is owned by Donald Horowitz and Robert Dale. She is in charge, with help from Evelyn Collado, of putting together the bouquets people buy to give their “others” for Valentine’s Day.
“The red roses are the most popular for Valentine’s Day, but we get a lot of orders for white ones, too,” she said.
Ms. Browne grew up in East Hampton, where, she said, “my grandmother had me helping her in the garden. She grew orchids, holly trees, rosebushes . . . I was a rowdy kid. You had to keep me busy.” Her grandmother taught Ms. Browne the names of all the flowers. “It was helping her plant and going with her to local flower shops that got me interested in doing this.”
After three or four morning classes at East Hampton High School, Ms. Browne took a bus to Eastern Suffolk BOCES in Riverhead, where she studied floral design for two hours, every day.
Once out of school, Ms. Browne worked at the farm stand at Dayton Farm. She grew flowers from seed, planted them, and cut them. She also worked at East Hampton Florists, Marders, and Buckley’s. She has been at Wittendale’s for 10 years.
Most of the flowers sold there come from Holland, where they are grown in a controlled environment. On Valentine’s Day the flowers, ordered by Mr. Dale, arrive from the wholesalers and are immediately put in a bucket of tepid water with Floral Life solution, allowed to drink for about an hour, and then it’s into the cooler.
Ms. Browne cleans them, conditions them, and arranges them. “A lot of workmen come in on their break to get a rose for their wives or girlfriends,” she said. “We stay open later on Valentine’s Day to help out the people who get out of work at 6.”
“Roses, just not the red ones, are my favorite flowers,” Ms. Browne conceded, and the shop sells 2,000 loose roses on Valentine’s Day. “I’ve never been a red flower kind of person. I also hate geraniums, but I love freesias.” She fields hundreds of calls the day before the 14th and the day of. “It’s nonstop. But Mother’s Day is 10 times worse because not everyone has a boyfriend or girlfriend, but everyone has at least one mother.”
For Mother’s Day one year, Wittendale’s did an arrangement for $1,800. The father bought one for $1,000 and he paid $400 for each of his daughters’ arrangements. Usually the most people pay is $700 to $800.
All flowers are sold by the stem, which range from $1.50 each to $20. Hydrangeas cost $16.50 to $20 a stem. “We try not to mark them up more than double,” Ms. Browne said.
Ms. Browne advised flower buyers that flowers with a woody stem (hydrangeas, lilacs, viburnum) need to be put in hot water, which extends their lives up to two weeks, if the ends are cut and they are put again in hot water.
She also takes orders for parties on people’s yachts, she said, and arranges the flowers on the boats. Wittendale’s discourages people from having weddings too close to holidays because then they can’t give a wedding the attention it deserves.