As the year goes on and I’m continuing to try and reduce my negative impact on the world/make it a little better, I find myself questioning everything I do, everything I buy, everything I throw away and all the things I don’t do.
An example of this today was that it was time to admit that my red roses from Valentine’s day had passed their peak, normally they would have been put straight in the kitchen bin – end of.
But today I wondered if there was a way to prolong their beauty… What can you do with roses?
- Make perfume
- Make pot pourri
- Make confetti – to throw, to use in wrapping, decorate tables, etc.
- Eat them (apparently!)
- Use them to fragrance your drawers – take that as you will 😉
- Use them for card-making/arty stuff
- Compost them
- Use them to make a tasty beverage – tea or cocktails (again I’ve not tried this)
- Create your own beauty/home spa treatments
- Throw them in your bath
Not all of these were serious options in my mind – especially as I was looking at flowers from over a week ago – but I have done something with my roses, other than just bin them!
Whilst I was doing it I realised that the reason I normally throw flowers away as soon as they start to wilt is because of the inevitability of their decline: the transformation from something beautiful, fragrant and delightful to something brown, drooping and decaying.
If you become nauseous easily you may want to stop reading now… 🙂
By doing something with the roses I feel like not only have I preserved some of the bouquet’s original perfection, but also some of the sentiment behind it. It makes me think that, like the flowers, the love that inspired the purchase is something that may change, but will last, rather than something that will deteriorate and die.