Business Spotlight
Language of Love:
Valentine's Day at Zelek Flower Shop
by Kelly Boyer Sagert
Red roses are the classic symbol of romance, with more than 224 million roses, on average, grown annually for Valentine's Day bouquets. At Zelek Flower Shop, located at 1001 Reid Avenue in Lorain, second-generation owner Mary Zelek and her dedicated team are hard at work as they plan for their stunning arrangements—ones that often come with balloons, chocolates, wine, stuffed animals, cards, and more.
“You really can express your feelings through flowers,” Mary says, “and I’m often asked what each flower symbolizes. The reality is that there are traditional meanings and there are also personal meanings that uniquely exist between the gift giver and recipient. So individual taste matters, too.” During the 19th century Victorian Era, people who wanted to follow the complicated rules of etiquette would subtly share messages through the language of plants and flowers. From this came the more traditional meanings of flowers.
For example, a man in love might prepare a “Tussie-Mussie,” which was a small handheld bouquet. Also known as a nosegay, it would contain fragrant herbs with a single gorgeous flower in the center. When the suitor handed a Tussie-Mussie to the woman he adored, the meaning would have been clear. If she took the bouquet and embraced it towards her heart, she loved him in return. If she pointed it downward, the answer, alas, was “no.”
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When focusing on roses, red shared passion while pink meant affection. Yellow flowers indicated friendship, while white flowers signaled purity.
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“Today,” Mary says, “some people embrace traditional meanings of flowers while others focus more on what a specific person might want. Younger men often stick to red roses when sending them to a woman while couples who have been in a long-time relationship may send something different, such as yellow daisies, because they know the other person’s tastes well. Nowadays, people also send flowers to their children—even to themselves!”
