Don’t be a prick but do give your honey (or yourself) some beautiful blooms this month.

Roses are a hot commodity in February as everyone and their lover gifts them to their beloved as symbols of affection. For most of the year, a dozen of the thorny clichés will run you around $10–$12 at Safeway or King Soopers. In February, the price doubles at a minimum—and, yes, grocery store roses are the bare minimum. The cost of a dozen long stems at a top area florist like Veldkamp’s spikes to $119 plus delivery for that one day in February.

That’s not love, that’s dumb, and your person doesn’t want to love a dummy who just loves to waste money just because it’s February 14. Roses on Valentine’s Day are forced tokens of affection, and your sweetie deserves spontaneous showcases of romance.

TIP: At Veldkamp’s Flowers & Gifts in Lakewood, all flowers sold by the stem are buy one, get one free during the daily Flower Happy Hour, which runs from noon to close on weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday…except for the week leading up to Valentine’s Day on February 14.

Whether you’ve been the giver or the receiver of these forced tokens of affection in the past, you can do better. If in your book, a rose is not a rose by any other name, and you want roses, that’s totally fine—you do you. We just encourage you to do them any other month of the year and put the funds you’ll save by opting for tulips or ranunculuses or peonies instead.

(Related aside: if you see peonies for sale in February, you gotta let us know where so we can get some, too. It’s not a matter of opinion but of fact that peonies are far superior to all other flowers at all times, period. Peonies. Always say yes to peonies.)

So go ahead and surprise your beloved with some extraordinary out-of-the-heart-shaped-box blooms on or around February 14 not because Hallmark has brainwashed you to do so but because you need new ways to say “six feet away from you is six feet too far.”

Photo by Autumn Goodman for Unsplash