Review by Tabitha Thompson

What The Omnivores Dilemma did for eating, Flower Confidential does for flower buying. Call it the flora-adorers dilemma. Amy Stewart grapples with the environmental, social, and ethical impact of cut flowers without forgetting the ethereal qualities that the flower, above all other greenery, possesses.

Stewart's connective stories zip from flower to flower as examples of the nature of the flower industry. She begins with one man’s obsession that led him to create the ‘Star Gazer’ lilya (a much-desired hybrid that incorporates the up-facing blossom of Asiatic lilies and the intense fragrance of Oriental breeds) in his backyard by a painstaking cross-breeding process of brushing pollen from one flower onto another by hand. It is also a tale of fortunes never achieved, won by others, and lost.

She touches on the illusive blue rose, Dutch tulips, and sweet violets as part of the science of flower growing: color creation, flower blossom timing (regulated by the amount of darkness a plant receives, not the amount of light), and plant shape (based in part on the “difference in the number of degrees between night and day temperatures.”)

Stewart even gives in to swooning over some gorgeous new flower varieties she sees while investigating the life of cut flowers. And who could blame her. Isn’t that why we buy flowers? For the romance they impart?

‘Limbo’ was a delicious sherbet green like no color I’d ever seen in a rose before. ‘Forever Young’ was just that—scarlet and luscious and perpetually on the verge of breaking into full bloom.... That day I found myself turning into a rose snob.... They were the floral equivalent of a Tiffany diamond...”

But then Stewart sees the fungicide bath—a dip, to be precise—that many Latin American flowers get just before being packaged and sent to the U.S. And she notes that in one New York shop’s $150 bouquet, just 4 cents per stem go to the workers who cultivated the flowers.

Complex issues from international trade negotiations to chemical toxicity turn a simple bouquet that appears to be nature’s bounty and a symbol of love or sorrow or thanks, into politics. As Stewart laments, “there’s nothing romantic or sentimental about toxic pesticides and under paid workers.”

But just as the reader becomes disillusioned with her household nosegay, Stewart focuses on the organic/responsible farming certification that is finally taking hold in the U.S.: a regulation branding called VeriFlora that “establishes standards for the reduction of pesticides and other chemicals, conservation of natural resources, worker safety, and labor rights.”

Florists can be found that offer VeriFlora bouquets (Stewart lists them) and allows the now-educated consumer a chance to fall back in love with the flower as emoticon, as deep breathing instigator, and as luxury item. In Stewarts’ opinion, such certification programs “represent the best hope flowers have of winning back their souls, their purity.” In the meantime, however, I won’t be dropping any more rose petals into my bath water.