This is a peculiar story. It is the journey of a small and fragile being, with a short life but who, with his presence and everything he represents, excites, moves, generates excitement and makes hearts pump with joy. She – because it’s her – is called pink – so, in lower case – and is of the Freedom variety; a good surname, with a vindictive pedigree. He was born a few weeks ago in a field in the province of Pichincha, in Ecuador. The peasants of the area carefully picked it, along with thousands of other flowers, after a commission from the historic Navarro Florist – almost 70 years old – in Barcelona.
Its owner, Sylvia Navarro, called the producer at the end of February to place the order, the largest of the entire year. “I told them I wanted 50,000 roses, mainly red, but there are also yellow and some pink. With his team, they organize and plant them”, he explains. And which calendar do they follow so that they arrive fresh on Sant Jordi? They harvested Rosa Freedom and her vegetable colleagues on April 13 and “put them in bunches of 25 by 25 in boxes, well protected.”
On the 14th they traveled all night on a flight of more than 9,000 kilometers and 14 hours until they arrived at the Prat customs. “There they go through a very demanding pest control and, as soon as we get the go-ahead, the trucks transport them to our facilities in Vilassar de Mar.”
On that way, the rose has been without water for two days. “To recover it, we open the boxes to air it out and cut the stem with two fingers, diagonally, until it is white, so that it absorbs the nutrients”, he explains. They put it in water, “with a preservative liquid, and we put it in the chambers at 8 degrees, for 24-48 hours, without anyone touching it, so that it recovers well”. From the 17th, Navarro began to prepare Sant Jordi’s orders for the collectives and, from Friday, they assembled the private creations.
Care to preserve the fragility of the long journey is vital. “We work with a delicate material, which has been cut for more than 10 days. For this reason, we keep the cold chain constant and, once we have made the bouquet, it returns twice more to the chamber. But we are increasing the temperature a little, so that the flower acclimatises”, he emphasizes. If the street temperature were to drop below 8 degrees, on Sant Jordi “she would suffer a thermal shock and be destroyed”, she continues.
The journey continues when the flower arrives home: “You have to continue taking care of it, you have to change the water every day and, every day, you cut the stem diagonally a little, to keep it alive. And then, if you want a souvenir, you can dry it, always upside down”, he advises.
Flowers flow through Sylvia Navarro’s veins. Speak with knowledge. “My grandfather, who was a gardener in the Putxet neighborhood, founded this florist in 1956 and we have been three generations. He started with something very small, selling on a metal table at the entrance of a supermarket. Later, with his father, he already bought a stall at the Concepció market”. He acknowledges that it is a “very dedicated” profession because florists work “when people have parties and there are different celebrations to attend to”. But he admits that it excites him. “That’s why I put aside my professional career in the audiovisual sector to focus on floristry”.
Sant Jordi has lived it, with different intensities, since she was a child. “About 40 years ago, in the days before the celebration, when I was leaving school, I was helping the parents. Then a Maresme rose was given as a gift, instead of the flower. It was decorated with a fine asparagus leaf, which stung a lot, more than the thorns of roses – he recalls with a laugh – and wrapped in newspaper. Later, silver foil was used and in the eighties the spike was introduced, as a symbol of fertility”.
