Why red, why roses and why hearts on Valentine’s Day?

On Valentine’s Day, many people send the traditional gift of red roses. But why red and why roses?

Red roses carry the emotions of love, desire and often lust and the number of red roses included in a delivery also has a special significance.

The Romans, who turned Aphrodite into their goddess Venus, the goddess of love,  kept the rose as her symbol of love and beauty. So when Valentine’s Day became the mainstream holiday we know today, sending one rose was an obvious choice to say “I Love You.”

One dozen red roses have become the modern bouquet for true love, representing perfect beauty or to express complete love and gratitude and a bouquet of 24 red roses say “I am thinking about you 24 hours a day.”

Roses have become the traditional Valentine’s Day flower, but they don’t always have to be red. People send many different coloured roses (and indeed other blooms) to communicate the different types of love they feel for those special people in their life.

The colour of the rose you select is significant as each colour has a distinct meaning:

• Red – enduring passion
• White – purity, humility and innocence
• Yellow – expressing friendship
• Pink – joy, gratitude, appreciation and admiration
• Orange – enthusiasm and desire
• Lilac and Purple roses – represent enchantment and love at first sight.

Wild roses were the original roses given as Valentine’s Day flowers and these wild roses only had five petals.  The five petals of the traditional rose reflect the five languages of love:

1. Receiving gifts
2. Quality time
3. Words of affirmation
4. Acts of service
5. Physical touch