On a table in her 1820 stone farmhouse in Waterford, Virginia, floral designer Holly Heider Chapple is reinventing the Valentine's Day bouquet.
Amid a soft confection of fernlike plumosa, blue-green seeded eucalyptus and the wands of white veronica blooms, a dozen plump roses repose luxuriantly.
The blooms Chapple has chosen have a name, Miranda, and sorry, Cupid, they are a shell pink, not red. They bear scant resemblance to the tightly wound rosebuds on a stick that have come to symbolize the Valentine's rose. Instead they look as if they are from an English cottage garden – open, swirling with petals and as sweetly scented as grandma's cologne.
"I just can't bring myself to use a standard rose anymore," Chapple said. "Flowers are supposed to look as if they come from the garden. Standard roses look as if they were made on a production line."
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