For the last five months I have worked at a flowershop in Tulsa, and I would like to help the many boys out there who buy flowers without knowing what they are buying.

Let's begin with roses. How do you pick a good dozen roses? At my work, we have a $20 special. It's one dozen roses in a plastic sleeve wrapper. That's a good price, but I constantly watch people choose our oldest merchandise. If the flowers are in bloom already, that is big and open, then they are already at the peak of their lives. This peak has been delayed by a life time spent in coolers and you're buying flowers that will be nice to present, but they won't live more than a few days.

So, we should only buy tight buds, right? Not exactly, some roses don't open very much even when it full bloom... Lot's of flowers have been bred for their color, or life span, not their ability to really open.

So, what can you do to pick the perfect dozen? First, look at the blooms that are tighter, but check that they have at least a small opening at the tip. If the tip is tightly sealed, this rose won't open at all. It's called a "bullet" and it will live and die with a sharp point. Next, reach into the roses and give one a gentle squeeze. There should be some resistance at the base of the petals. You should be able to imagine that someone has stuffed a gumball into the rose and shut the bloom back up. Try about five roses in the dozen, if they all have a slight hardness, you have found a good dozen.

This trick works fine on more open blooms, too. If you find that gumball shape, you've got a rose that just blooms large and quick, but still has some life in it.

Now, once you've got your roses, treat them right. Get them into water quickly. You should not have them out for more than an hour. And when they have been out of water, or they're going into the display vase, cut the ends. The stem ends close up if they haven't been cut in a few days or if they've been out of water for 15 minutes or more. Finally, yes, you can refrigerate your flowers, but not with fruit in the refrigerator. Fruit causes flowers, especially roses, to speed up their life cycles. Read "dead roses by morning." Your flowers will survive reasonably at 74 degrees, but they will last progressively longer as the temperature drops (until freezing). At freezing, the roses will die and rapidly turn black. So, watch out for the back, upper shelves of the refrigerator where food can get some frostbite.

Finally, if you get a mixed arrangement, check the undersides of the carnations for browning. Carnations last a long time, so if they are browning at all, I'd avoid the arrangement all together.

It doesn't take an expert to buy good flowers, just a few easy tricks.