Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

My Two Dollars had a problem with FTD for Mother’s Day. It turned out badly, but at least he’s getting a refund. I left a comment about how I just call a local florist with a good reputation than deal with FTD. (I won’t repost the advice here. You should go visit the link.) I also left additional advice about making sure I send flowers which I know will last.

Googling for “long last cut flowers”, I found this nice article at About.com.

Good Choices for Long Lasting Cut Flowers

* Alstroemerias (6-14 days) Very popular, even though most people wouldn’t know them by name. However they are sensitive to fluoride in water and ethylene gas. Keep away from produce.

* Carnations (7-14 days) Carnations are extremely dependable. They just keep coming out with new varieties and what colors they can’t breed, they simply dye.

* Delphiniums (7-14 days) You can’t beat Delphiniums for shades of blue and purple. Like Alstroemeria, these are sensitive to ethylene gas.

* Lilies (7-14 days) Choose sprays with a few slightly opened lower buds. Remove the anthers to prevent pollen from coming in contact with clothing and staining.

* Roses (6-12 days) The classic. And with over 20,000 varieties, they never get boring.

* Sunflowers (6-12 days) Generally available in late summer. Sunflowers can be top heavy, so use a vase that can support them.

I personally cannot stand alstroemerias, which are sometimes called Peruvian lilies. They drop their blooms and turn into a big cleanup mess. We had them at a the deli where I worked in high school. Why not add some flowers to dinner? It’s a great selling idea, but the nightly mess of moving the flower bucket when they got a few days old was annoying. The bucket would get jostled and the blooms would fall straight down. ICK. But they’re perfectly fine if you aren’t going to move the vase in anyway. (Get a watering can to refill the vase and minimize movement.)

Carnations remind me of cheap Valentines at school. Stay away.

Delphiniums are gorgeous and tall. But you’ll want to buy filler flowers if you want to take advantage of their height in a tall, but balanced display. Plus blues and purples are not everyone’s colors.

Lilies? BEAUTIFUL. But if your mother is allergic to pollen, ask them to remove the anthers/pollen part as recommended. Worth it. I have allergies and when I get lilies, I nip off the anthers and it doesn’t hurt my enjoyment of their beauty or scent.

Roses OUGHT to last 2 weeks, all the time. Buy long stemmed ones so they can be recut every other day to ensure good water take up. I think that’s the key to making them last. Also, you can ask the florist to tape wire to the stems so that the blooms don’t droop at the ‘neck’. Often that’s what makes them unappealing after 4-5 days, the drooping neck.

Sunflowers, pretty! But I don’t have much experience with them. Just three with some nice greenery is rather pretty though.

I think can tulips last a long time, but irises not so much. We cut our own white and purple bearded irises from my mom’s garden, but they don’t last more than a week.

Even better than cut flowers is to send a potted plant. If your gift giving occasion is early spring, try sending forced bulbs in a nice container. Or send geraniums which love to be root-bound and stay in the pot. When my father was sick in the hospital, we got a lot orchids which came home with us or were re-gifted to other patients in the ICU. (Soil is not ok in ICU rooms, but orchids are in wood chips and are considered ok. But check first with the nursing staff at the hospital for what’s appropriate for the patient.)

Additional advice: If you choose to call a florist remotely, ask them what’s cheap, in-season, long-lasting, and the per stem cost of flowers. Tell them up front what your budget is so they can work around it. I found my florist to be extremely helpful, but I had direct experience with them from buying prom corsages, etc. I found this link of ordering advice from my friend’s mom’s shop in CA. I never went there but another college classmate got her prom corsages there. (A funny coincidence since we went to college on the east coast!)