Over ten years ago, I worked in a flower shop. Maybe because Valentine’s Day is coming up, I found myself thinking about my time there, and I started listing suggestions, tidbits, and warnings that I’d give somebody who wanted to order flowers. It surprised me, how many I thought of, after all this time. Hopefully these insider tips will be of use to someone:
Placing an Order
I’m sure this makes me sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but, if possible, call from a land line. The reception is so much better. This comes from years of customer service experience. It’s much more pleasant doing business when both of you can understand what the other person is saying.
Don’t order from wire services like FTD, 1-800-FLOWERS, or Teleflora. You may see their ads in magazines or online. What they do is take a cut of the money and then send the order to a flower shop for fulfillment. You’d be better off calling a flower shop directly- one that’s located in the area where you want the flowers delivered. Another reason ordering from wire services is a ripoff is that they send the local shop enough money to cover the cost of the arrangement, but not delivery. They tell shops to use all the money on flowers, but it’s common practice for shops to subtract the delivery charge, so don’t be surprised if the arrangement that arrives looks skimpier than the one in the picture. The only reason to order from a wire service is if you or another recipient collects the container that the arrangement comes in. (Some containers are designed by artists such as Thomas Kinkade, or feature popular cartoon characters. They cost roughly three times as much as a plain container, too.) You’d have to really like the container for it to be worth the price. Even then, for a better deal, you could call shops directly to see if they offer the specific Teleflora design you’re interested in.
You don’t need to know what kind of flowers to get! The safest thing to ask for is a “mixed bouquet,” “seasonal arrangement,” or “designer’s choice.” Leave it to the experts.
You can also make general requests, like “bright and cheery” or “a sympathy bouquet,” to let the designer know what general mood to strive for and what colors to use. If you let the shop know that “her favorite color is purple,” or “her favorite flowers are daisies,” they can incorporate that into the arrangement.
The shop may ask what kind of container you want the arrangement made in. If you don’t know or don’t care, get a vase. In my opinion, they are more reliably elegant and classic. A “table arrangement” is traditionally made by setting wet flower foam into a tray and sticking stems into the foam. It’s not my first choice because a.) this foam material is not eco-friendly, and b.) traditional trays are made of plastic and can look cheap. For a country look, you might opt for a wicker basket. These arrangements are normally constructed using flower foam.
Let the shop know if your recipient has allergies or is sensitive to strong scents. The shop will tailor a hypoallergenic arrangement.
Besides cut flowers, many shops sell potted plants. My favorite item to put together was an English Garden, a mix of potted plants inside a basket. These ranged from two-inch indoor plants to gallon-sized bedding plants, in appropriately sized baskets. Spanish moss covered the dirt and hid the pots. Talk to your local shop about their selections.
You can request gift shop items be added to an arrangement, such as a fake butterfly or dragonfly on a stick, a ceramic figurine, a small stuffed animal, balloons, and chocolates. A floral arrangement can also be made directly inside of a mug or other container.
When I worked there, prices for arrangements started at $25. The minimum price for a large, impressive arrangement was $75. With grander flowers, or for a fuller arrangement, it would cost more like $100, $125 +. If you wanted the arrangement delivered [you had the choice of picking it up yourself], delivery would cost a minimum of an additional $7. (The price varied depending on the distance from the shop.) Pricing depends on the location and practices of the actual shop. In big cities, costs are higher. In the suburbs, my shop charged $60 for a dozen roses, but downtown Chicago might have been $75 or $90. (It’s insane.) Some tiny, rural towns didn’t charge extra for delivery.
A typical arrangement will automatically include greens (usually at least leatherleaf fern) and filler flowers. Filler flowers tend to be airy, muIti-branched stems covered with tiny blooms. As their name suggests, they fill in space, bulking up the bouquet. Pricing for a dozen roses, for example, includes a vase, greens, and fillers– not just the roses.
Know how to spell the name of the person you’re sending flowers to. This is more to save you from embarrassment than anything else. One guy was ordering flowers for his mom for Mother’s Day. Nice. I asked him to spell his mom’s name [with so many unique spellings nowadays, I always double check], and HE DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL HIS MOM’S NAME. Her name was Debbie. [On a side note, the most confounding example of not knowing how to spell a name happened at the community college I worked at. When it was time for students to graduate, they had to fill out a form and print their name exactly as they wanted it to appear on their diploma, and lots of people included their middle names. One student didn’t even know how to spell HIS OWN MIDDLE NAME. He told me that his mom gave him some weird middle name from another country, and he had to call her to check on the spelling. I don’t care how foreign the word sounds- it’s YOUR OWN NAME! I still can’t believe it.]
Know the address and phone number for where you want the flowers delivered, including addresses for businesses. Some companies have separate retail, corporate, and warehouse locations.
If you’re ordering for a funeral, know the name of the person who died. Funeral homes may hold services for more than one person a day, and “Mary Brown’s mother-in-law” or “my co-worker’s grandma” probably isn’t specific enough for the flower shop or the funeral home to figure out which party the flowers are meant for.
Similarly, if you’re sending flowers to a church, know the exact name of the church. You may know it as “St. Mary’s,” but there may be twelve churches in the area that could go by that nickname. Is it St. Mary Great Mother of God Catholic Church, Saint Mary Parish, or St. Mary Our Lady of the Lake? When asked where the funeral is being held, answering “It’s in the paper” is kind of a jerk move. They’re floral designers, not detectives.
Think about what you want the card to say. A note will be included with your arrangement. The flower shop staff can offer generic suggestions if you’re at a loss for words. But if you want to send a more personal message, you might want to think about it before you’re put on the spot. Once, a woman was ordering sympathy flowers for a coworker. When it came time for the card, she kept sighing and going, “What do you say? I mean, what do you even say?” I offered, “Sorry for your loss?” “We’re not that close,” she snapped. Sometimes, you’re on your own.
Shops will try and accommodate general delivery guidelines you specify, such as “before 10 a.m.” or “after 2 p.m.” If you call in the morning, or even early afternoon (say, by 2), you can generally get a same-day delivery. But if you call an hour before the store closes, don’t expect your order to be delivered that day. Delivery timing depends on how the specific store operates, how busy the place is, whether or not the drivers have already left for the day, and other factors. Talk to your local shop for more details.
Flower Shop Info
Usually, a shop displays pre-made bouquets and arrangements in a cooler. This is for your convenience, to pick an already-made bouquet and take it with you. Some customers would ask for a vase of flowers to be made just like the one in the cooler, but with “fresh” flowers. I can only speak for the one shop I worked in, but the flowers sitting in a vase in the front cooler came from the same batch as the flowers sitting in a bucket in our back workroom cooler. Thinking you’re getting a better product because you see it come directly out of the workroom is psychological.
Depending on how busy the shop is, you may be able to walk in, order an arrangement, and wait while they make it (it might take 15 minutes or so).
DIY crafters, you can buy floral supplies from flower shops. For higher quality supplies than what you’d find in a craft or discount store, talk to your local flower shop to see if they’ll sell you floral foam, floral tape, Davee tape, stem wire, boutonniere pins, wristlets, dried moss, etc. Another plus is that you may be able to buy exactly the amount you need (for example, five bout pins, as opposed to a 144-count box).
Specific Flowers
When one customer ordered roses, I asked what color he wanted, and he replied that he didn’t know roses came in anything besides red. Roses come in hundreds- if not thousands- of colors and color combinations [click here to see a small selection]. You don’t have to order just one color, either; you can ask for a mix. Another option is to say “Surprise me” (if you don’t care).
In the general public, people (or women, at least) seem to have a vague knowledge of the Victorian Language of Flowers when it comes to the colors of roses. If you look up what each color symbolizes, you might get different answers from different resources, but the bottom line is that yellow represents friendship, and red symbolizes passion and love. So, if someone reveals that they’re in love with you, and you decide to send them roses as a romantic gesture, you might want to specify “not yellow.” Otherwise, the recipient may interpret your gift to mean “We’re just friends.” (To avoid the complication and mixed messages, you could send something other than roses.)
If you’re looking for a change from the classic red roses and baby’s breath, here are some of my favorite rose combos:
-Yellow roses and sky blue asters
-Peach roses and purple waxflowers (the “purple” is actually magenta)
-Hot pink roses and lime green hypericum berries
-Coral roses and dark purple stock
-Ivory roses and an assortment of greens as filler
[Carnations can be substituted for roses for a similar look.]
Carnations have a reputation as an old-fashioned flower, maybe because they do not look like modern art, the way that lotus pods or fiddlehead fern curls do. But I’m a fan. Here’s what carnations have going for them:
-They’re hardy. A designer accidentally left a carnation on the work table one night, and when I came in the next morning, the flower looked the same. Roses, on the other hand, wilt very quickly out of water.
-They’re long-lasting (often last around two weeks in a vase)
-They’re available in tons of colors and bicolors (check out this webpage for a sampling)
-They smell good (faintly of cloves)
-They’re affordable (a lot less expensive than roses)
For sympathy flowers, I recommend a potted peace lily. They are handsome, long-lived, and the plant produces graceful white flowers. An orchid plant is another refined option.
African violet plants seem to blend a calm vibe with a whimsical vibe, making them appropriate for all kinds of occasions: Birthday, Mother’s Day, Thank You, Get Well, Housewarming, Thinking of You, and on and on.
Arrangements comprised of only one type of flower can look very sophisticated, especially if they’re monochromatic. Try it with tulips, delphiniums, Oriental lilies, orchids, or calla lilies. Even country style flowers like daisies, sunflowers, and even baby’s breath (normally used as a filler flower) can look more upscale when spotlighted.
Common long-lasting flowers found in the average flower shop include:
-Alstroemeria (blooms look like tiny lilies)
-Carnations
-Orchids
-Daisies (actually chrysanthemums in most cut flower shops)
-Poms (also chrysanthemums, this time more button-shaped)
-Statice (Usually used as a filler flower, it makes an exceptional dried flower- the stem will rot in the vase before the flower will fall off.)
I’ve seen all of these routinely last two weeks. It’s not unusual for orchids to last a month in a vase. [You can also request that an arrangement be made with all long-lasting flowers.]
Some common scented flowers available in flower shops are:
-Stock (spicy sweet smell. One of my favorites. However, my dad mentioned that it reminds of funerals. What an unfortunate association for a lovely plant.)
-Oriental lilies [Note: not the same as Asiatic lilies, which are unscented] (perfumey smell)
-Roses (To me, they smell like raspberries. Be aware that many roses are bred for their color and shipping quality nowadays, leaving some varieties with hardly any scent.)
-Freesia (A lot of people seem to like this scent. Some people describe it as fruity. I think it smells like the paste we used in kindergarten.)
-Gardenias (smooth, slightly powdery smell. Good floating in a clear bowl for weddings or other special occasions.)
-Peonies, hyacinths, daffodils, and lilacs (spring flowers, available seasonally. Peonies and hyacinths have rich, perfumey smells. Daffodils vary from sweet to perfumey. Lilacs have somewhat of a baby powder smell.)
-Waxflower (used as a filler, but I’m going to mention that they smell like pine trees)
If you’re in the market for a wrist corsage, I’d recommend ordering one made with mini carnations instead of roses. When I worked in the shop, rose corsages, far and away the most popular type, started at $22.50. Lots of girls wanted special ribbons, glitter spray paint on their flowers, extra filler flowers, crystals, and other embellishments, and prices got pretty outlandish (50-something dollars). For a bracelet that lasts a few hours! I don’t know about you, but I can think of a lot of things I’d rather buy with 50-something dollars. As mentioned earlier, carnations last longer than roses out of water, they’re lighter weight (it’s going to be on your wrist all night), not as clunky-looking, and prices started at $9. If you love heady, perfumey scents, another option (not a budget option, though) is to go retro and special order a gardenia corsage.
Ordering Special Flowers
The shop ordered flowers from our suppliers once a week, and sometimes added a smaller order mid-week if we got a big project or lots of special orders. To ensure specific flower types or specific colors, place your order at least 10 days in advance. As long as the shop’s supplier has it or can get it, ordering early guarantees that you’ll get what you want. Otherwise, you may call the day before your sister’s birthday to order a bouquet in orange, her favorite color, and be told that the shop doesn’t have anything orange in stock, and they won’t be getting another shipment for three days.
Placing a generic order is a good idea, even if you know your flowers. Here’s one problem with getting too specific: for better or for worse, you’ll get what you ordered. If you ask for butter yellow roses, the bunch that comes (special ordered) from the supplier might have slightly wrinkly petals, browned outer petals, leaves with powdery mildew, or other issues. The shop will remove the disgusting parts, but the point is that while the flowers might be sellable, they’re not super healthy or as pretty as other flowers in the cooler. But since you asked for butter yellow roses, you’re getting butter yellow roses.
Special message to control freaks: Please, let the designers do their jobs. Some customers would call and ask what we had in the cooler and then want to pick out the exact flowers for us to use in an arrangement. We can see the colors and styles of flowers available, and over the phone, you can’t. It is excruciating to try and describe the nuances of six different shades of pink while you try and design an arrangement in your head based on your interpretation of my descriptions. Never once did any of these people ask, “Which one do you think looks best with the dark purple larkspur?” They acted like they were Matisse and we were morons. Designers have a knack for art, color, and design- that’s how they got hired. Trust that they’ll put together something beautiful. [Note: If you’re near the flower shop, you can go in and look at the flowers in person. Be aware that this can be just as annoying to florists, though, to pull out every bucket in the cooler while you hem and haw over all the choices.]
Flowers from Other Sources
I’m sure this is blasphemous, but honestly, I didn’t notice an overall difference in the quality or longevity of flowers bought from the grocery store versus the flower shop. I never did a scientific study, but from observation, the quality from the flower shop was, at different times, better, comparable, and inferior to grocery store flowers. It differed depending on each specific bunch.
If you buy from a discount store like Walmart or Sam’s Club, buy flowers as soon as they’re put out on the sales floor. Discount stores don’t usually hire a dedicated floral staff, so the flowers don’t get taken care of (water changed regularly, stems recut, buckets cleaned, dead flowers removed, etc.), so they wilt, turn brown, get moldy, and die faster, sometimes right there on display. Ask your local store when new shipments are available for customers, and get ahold of them as close to fresh as you can.
Actually, that’s good advice in general. Whether you buy from a grocery store, flower shop, street vendor, or discount store, ask when fresh shipments are available for purchase and shop accordingly.
For freshness, look for firm blooms. To test roses, gently pinch the bottom, bulbous part of the flower head. Ideally, it should feel like you’re pinching a golf ball. The more resistance, the better. If you pinch it and both sides squeeze together and the whole thing feels soft, I wouldn’t even bother buying it. (Or, just realize that it won’t last long.)
Open blooms look impressive, but opt for more buds than blooms. This will give the recipient a longer time to enjoy the flowers.
Whether they’re bought from a shop, grown in your yard, or sprung in a crack in the sidewalk, flowers are food for the soul. Share the feast!