Flowers take center stage at the Rose Parade

January 04, 2011

Imagine having a flower gift with a $400,000 price tag delivered to your doorstep.

Millions of Rose Parade viewers got the next best thing watching the annual Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day.

The parade featured 46 floats and several million flowers. Each float must be completely covered in organic materials.

"The most common flower in the parade is the chrysanthemum," Tournament of Roses member Gary Frueholz told the Wisconsin State Journal. "If you really wanted to be accurate, you'd call it the Chrysanthemum Parade."

He told the newspaper that each float costs between $75,000 to $400,000, depending on size, the number of flowers used, and whether the float has special effects like moving parts and pyrotechnics.

Various flowers are used, including - of course - roses. Colors vary and include orange and hot pink. Red rose flowers aren't commonly used because they look almost black on TV, according to the Pasadena Star-News.

Other popular float flowers include gerbera daisies, iris, delphinium, agapanthus and orchids.

This year's parade was themed "Building Dreams, Friendships and Memories."

The float chosen by viewers as the best was titled Galactic Expedition and was built by Cal Poly Universities. It depicted seven childhood friends building the rocket ship of their dreams and taking their imagination to soaring heights.

This viewer's choice award winning float featured more than 12,000 roses, 8,500 mums and approximately 9,500 carnations.

This article is brought to you by Teleflora - a leader in the flower delivery service for over 75 years. Teleflora helps its customers buy flowers online and specializes in bringing the freshest available flowers for a variety of holidays and occasions - all hand-delivered in keepsake vases by the best local florists.

baeb08f8-e2bb-4726-8996-01d2ab3b5442|0|.0

Add comment

Commenting Options

Enter your personal information to the left

Name*

E-mail*

Website

b i u quote

Notify me when new comments are added

comment policy