A shop wilts in Baghdad

BAGHDAD — Love is in the air in Yousif Mohammed's shop.

So is death, but that's OK, because Mohammed's business is selling flowers, and in Baghdad, where bouquets rarely top shopping lists these days, weddings and funerals are his mainstay.

It wasn't always like this. Before the war, Iraqis loved buying fresh flowers to brighten up their homes and offices, or to present with a flourish to the objects of their affection. Restaurants, hotels and other businesses bought flowers in bulk to adorn tables, counters and guest rooms.

Most of those businesses are closed now, and most of Mohammed's upmarket clientele has fled the country, the florist said as he stood inside his shop in central Baghdad. It was midday, but the light was dim and the air was still, the result of a power outage that was turning colorful bunches of carnations, roses, lilies and gladioli into weary stems wilting in a darkened refrigerator.

Mohammed, who used to have four Babylon Flower stores in Baghdad, now has only this one, and it has been displaced from its original location on a bustling corner where business was brisk. The old spot has been taken over by the Iraqi National Police, whose dirty boots and wash buckets line the wall they built around the former flower shop. Babylon Flower is now on a quiet side street where drop-in business is nonexistent.

The current shop, a former fish restaurant, doesn't even have a sign out front. The only thing that sets it apart from the nondescript houses along the street is the carefully tended front garden where greenery flourishes beneath tarps offering shade from the scorching sun.

It's hard to believe that Iraq, with its insufferable heat, bone-dry air and dust storms, could be an ideal place to grow flowers, but Mohammed insists that it can be.

"In the right environment, you can grow anything," said Mohammed, who uses humidifiers and tarps to create the humidity and shade needed for growing his own flowers in the shop's front garden.

There's no question that Iraq is a flower-loving country. As security has improved in much of Baghdad, public squares and center dividers along busy streets have sprouted carefully tended plots of impatiens, marigolds and other sun-loving plants. Greenery and flowers adorn private gardens. In the humblest of homes, plastic flowers provide a splash of color and a semblance of nature.

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