Romantic plants?

I'm teaching a 6 week Horticultural Retailing class starting in January.  Part of the curriculum is preparing displays and selling skills so we are going to have a bit of a plant product sale.

The date of the sale is Feb 2, and we aren't talking about a huge budget.  We don't have protected growing space or a lot of room for storage, so we can't do any sort of tender plants.  I was thinking Primulas and Violas in limited quantites.

Another idea is to sell seeds -particularly in connection with Valentines day - things like Sweet peas and Forget-me-nots.  We could fancy them up with ribbon and some 'To, From' heart cards.  I'd do cut flowers but we are too far away from the 14th for them to be viable. 

Any suggestions for any other 'sweet' plant common names?

Also we are supposed to sell some sort of non-perishable goods.  All I can come up with is maybe candles or pots, but I'm not sure how we could justify a significant mark-up for cheap tat or afford to shell out for nice stuff.

We don't have a lot of prep time (to do the added touches) or resources or skill (painting plain pots sounds fun but also time intensive, risky and costly).

The point of the sale isn't to make a substantial profit, but rather to go through the motions of preparation and selling and to at least break even.

Any ideas from the creative types? 

THanks folks! 

Hmmmm.... this is a tough one......really has the brain thinking.....

I'm not coming up with many "sweet" flowers, however, what about brightly colored ones that you could package somehow with candy (hard candy is fairly non-perishable).  My original thought was Gerberas paired with the Heart candies with the words on them (do they do those in the UK?  This upcoming Valentine's Day will be my first here). 

Or what about where "sweet" is implied in the name like Honeysuckle?


I'm guessing Bleeding Heart bushes may not be totally Valentine's-y.

Another idea is to sell seeds -particularly in connection with Valentines day - things like Sweet peas and Forget-me-nots.  We could fancy them up with ribbon and some 'To, From' heart cards.  I'd do cut flowers but we are too far away from the 14th for them to be viable. 

Any suggestions for any other 'sweet' plant common names?

Also we are supposed to sell some sort of non-perishable goods.  All I can come up with is maybe candles or pots, but I'm not sure how we could justify a significant mark-up for cheap tat or afford to shell out for nice stuff.

Seeds....how about Sweet William? Bleeding Hearts? Passion flower?

For non-perishable goods, would it possible to make potpourri? It's still horticultural-related and wouldn't cost much to put together. 

Seeds....how about Sweet William? Bleeding Hearts? Passion flower?

For non-perishable goods, would it possible to make potpourri? It's still horticultural-related and wouldn't cost much to put together. 

Good call on potpourri!!!

I'm guessing Bleeding Heart bushes may not be totally Valentine's-y.

Har!  Nor 'Love lies bleeding'.    I do like the little bag O candy idea.  Anything you might see for sale at a garden centre is up for grabs - wrapping paper, gift bags, sweets - impulse buy things.   It's just got to be fairly easy to put together, and then cheap enough to sell on at a reasonable price.  I found a web site with herbs that are used in love potions, which is a fun idea.  I just can't get too carried away or we will never get it all pulled together in the limited time we have (8 students working for about 5 hours, including ALL the advertising, preparation, set up, pricing, etc)

Passion flower?  For non-perishable goods, would it possible to make potpourri?

Great ideas.  Don't know if we could make it, but if I got it in bulk and then broke it down into sachets or smaller bags.

Cut flowers aren't viable for the VDay theme (they will never survive 12 days looking fresh), but I guess they could be 'Cheer up, Spring is coming' flowers   

Oh, this is great! If it were me, I'd theme it on The Language of Flowers and make up Victorian-looking cards with the meanings of the flowers written on them. So many flowers have love-related meanings - and can even be combined in various ways to portray more complex messages.

Just stay away from lime blossom which apparently means fornication!  

Oh, this is great! If it were me, I'd theme it on The Language of Flowers and make up Victorian-looking cards with the meanings of the flowers written on them. So many flowers have love-related meanings - and can even be combined in various ways to portray more complex messages.

Just stay away from lime blossom which apparently means fornication!  

Fabulous, chary!  That's a great idea.  These are young adults, so the lime blossom would probably be very popular!   

Thanks