For the Valentine’s Day purists, a red rose is the only kind of flower acceptable. But these days, romantics might be flustered for choice.

Whether light pink, hot pink, orange, white, yellow, green, lavender or a combination, roses are in abundance and can be found at the university’s local florists, Fresno State Floral and D&L Flowers.

Leading up to Friday’s festival of gift giving, a bouquet of flowers is perhaps the most classic cliché. Flower shops preorder months in advance to anticipate the rush so those both prepared and procrastinating turn up with roses for loved ones.

“It’s definitely a crazy house in here,” said Elisa Valdez, manager of Fresno State Floral.

Relatively unknown by students, the Fresno State Floral is a floral lab located on campus.

Established between 1970-73 by Dr. Gary Koch, a Fresno State professor of ornamental horticulture, it now runs a full service enterprise, working with student staff to cater events and supply everyday items.

With Valentine’s Day looming, Valdez said while walk-ins have been more prominent, the shop hopes to increase its number of customers.

“People don’t generally know that we’re here, and that’s one of the areas we work on every year,” Valdez said. “Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to pay for advertising so we rely a lot on word-of-mouth.”

While Fresno State floral orders in bulk for events such as weddings and funerals, the lab grows both its own flowers and plants in a bulb garden and also uses greenery from campus.

Although Fresno State Floral has already established contracts with several companies, it hopes to expand daily business by moving to a location more visible from the street, attracting those passing by.

The shop is currently located behind the ornamental horticulture greenhouses along Barstow Avenue, which is why it put in a proposal to move to the old Rue and Gwen Gibson Farm Market.

A better-known florist is D&L Flowers on Shaw Avenue, in the same shopping center as Chipotle. It is one of three branches in Fresno. Each Valentine’s Day the store sets up a canopy along the road to attract the last-minute shoppers.

D&L’s florist Kelley described the Valentine’s Day setup as shopping in an “organized, chaotic kind of way.”

Kelley said disorganized people are usually men, willing to “take whatever is out there.”

She also believed the majority of buyers were young people “caught up in the holiday.”

Yet both D&L and Fresno State Floral emphasized Valentine’s Day was not just for those in romantic relationships.

“A lot of women buy [flowers] not just for their husbands, but for friends,” Kelley said.

Nonetheless, the story that takes the cake for Valdez is a gentleman who religiously buys his wife roses come Feb. 14.

“It just so happens his wife’s birthday falls on Valentine’s Day,” Valdez said. “So every year he orders the number of roses of the age she turns.”