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Also by Amy Stewart:

Girl Waits with Gun, September 2015
Hardcover / e-Book
The Drunken Botanist, March 2013
Hardcover / e-Book
Wicked Bugs, May 2011
Hardcover
Wicked Plants, June 2009
Hardcover
Flower Confidential, January 2007
Hardcover

FLOWER CONFIDENTIAL
By: Amy Stewart

The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers

Algonquin Books
January 2007
On Sale: January 4, 2007
306 pages
ISBN: 1565124383
EAN: 9781565124387
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction

We buy more flowers a year than we do Big Macs, spending $6.2 billion annually. We use them to mark our most important events, to express sentiments that might otherwise go unsaid. And we demand perfection. So it’s no surprise that there is a $40 billion global industry devoted to making flowers flawless.

Amy Stewart takes us inside the flower trade—from the hybridizers, who create new varieties in the laboratory, to the growers, who produce flowers by the millions (often in a factory-like setting), to the Dutch auctioneers, who set the bar (and the price), and ultimately to the neighborhood florists orchestrating the mind-boggling demands of Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. There’s the breeder intent on developing the first blue rose; an eccentric horticultural legend who created the world’s most popular lily; a grower of gerberas of every color imaginable; and the equivalent of a Tiffany diamond: the “ Forever Young” rose.

Stewart explores the relevance of flowers in our lives and in our history, and in the process she reveals all that has been gained—and lost—by tinkering with nature.

Media Buzz

All Things Considered - July 12, 2007
Marketplace - PRI - April 16, 2007
CBS Sunday Morning - February 11, 2007
Diane Rehm Show - NPR - February 8, 2007
All Things Considered - February 7, 2007