Tips for buying Valentine flowers

Valentine’s Day is coming up. And while a mad dash to the grocery store for some cellophane-wrapped posies is always an option, as is clicking around the Internet for flowers and a vase to be delivered in a box – just add water, sweetheart! – you still have enough time to take local florists’ advice and make the experience nicer.

In fact, because Valentine’s Day is on a Sunday this year, they’re suggesting early delivery of flowers to the office for more of a weeklong celebration. And while you may be able to snag some last-minute flowers on Sunday, not all floral shops will be open that day.

“A lot of them go out to offices on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. A lot of guys have opted to choose Mondays so the ladies have a week of Valentine’s, and the card usually reflects that,” Matthew Dover, owner of Beards Floral Design in Wichita, said last year.

Here are some tips for buying flowers for Valentine’s Day, from interviews with local florists in 2015.

Shop local

If someone is buying flowers for the first time, Susan McKnight, owner of Susan’s, has one plea: Don’t buy them online through a flower handler.

“They come in a box and they’re not arranged,” she said of the flowers. “The first five florists online are often order-gatherers. Use local florists. You’ll get the better price, the better quality.”

There has been a big increase in online-ordered flowers over the past few years, said Jerry Yocum of Valley Floral Co., a wholesaler that supplies flowers to about 60 percent of Wichita’s florists.

Some local florists fulfill the online orders, Dover said, but “it’s not going to be what you see on the website, and a huge portion of what you spend leaves the Wichita market, and your money goes straight to that company for handling fees. … There are so many guys who are buying flowers once a year, and when you buy flowers once a year, you want to get the best.”

Then there’s the matter of supporting local florists. The number of them has fallen in recent years.

“Since 2009, that really took its toll,” Yocum said of the year the economy tanked. “We’ve lost probably half from what we had in the ’80s.”

Order ahead

Once you’ve found the local florists, visit them to see what they offer, or call around for their deadlines, delivery policies and prices, and hours for walk-in business.

Susan’s, for example, will deliver flowers both Friday and Saturday but can’t guarantee that the flowers will arrive by a certain time on those two crazy days. That can mean that flowers are delivered to a workplace after the intended recipient has already left for the day, McKnight said. She recommends arranging for Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday delivery instead.

Delivery from Susan’s, if the flowers are ordered ahead of time, is $7. Flowers ordered at the last minute can still be delivered at the last minute, but at extra cost, and, again, not by a certain time of day, McKnight said.

About half of Valentine flowers are sent to homes, half to workplaces, Dover said.

“Most guys prefer to have them sent to the office if she does work so she can enjoy them at work … make everybody else jealous,” he said.

If you don’t require a flower delivery, things get more relaxed. You can go into the stores, pick out what you want, and deliver it yourself. Beards will be open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Valentine’s Day even though it usually isn’t open Sundays, for example, while Susan’s doesn’t plan to be open.

Let the flowers talk

When it comes to picking out the flowers you will give, your Valentine’s tastes should rule, Yocum said. But other factors also are involved, such as the meaning you wish to convey.

If you’re fluent in the language of flowers, you know that yellow can mean jealousy, and white purity or innocence.

“I love you – that’s the message for a red rose,” Yocum of Valley Floral said. And red roses rule Valentine’s Day.

If you don’t want to express something that strong, or you aren’t sure what your Valentine likes, a mixed bouquet that includes a few spray roses along with some fragrant spring bulbs such as tulips, hyacinths or freesia is second in popularity for Valentine’s Day, Yocum said. “It lasts well and it smells good.”

But as young people get in the flower-buying market, tradition often goes by the wayside, he said. Hot colors and architectural designs give romance an edge.

“Even though the reds are the most popular, and that won’t change, we’re starting to see other colors make a real push, and the hotter versions of colors – like hot pink, oranges, a real bright yellow, purples and lavenders,” Yocum said.

While Beards does a traditional two dozen roses for clients who want that, “most people that call us want something different and out of the box, that’s real wild,” Dover said. “We do a lot of tropicals and really unusual flowers, and we source in a lot of really fun stuff from Holland and New Zealand and South Africa, and a lot of Hawaii and a lot of unusual stuff that you just never see.”

Even roses come in more unusual forms. Florists now offer what the industry calls garden roses. As opposed to the regal, long-stemmed hybrid tea rose, garden types look more like old roses, like cups of petals, such as those bred by David Austin. They “have a more ruffled look and a higher petal count – they last longer and open up bigger,” Dover said. If a man sees the traditional red hybrid tea up against the garden rose, he’ll go for the garden rose, Dover said.

Beyond the vase

Florists also can accessorize a bouquet with a swirl of colorful aluminum wire, beadwork or feathers; add bling with jeweled pins in the middle of a flower; and wrap vases in large leaves or velvet, Yocum said. Long, thin leaves can crisscross the tops of arrangements like the handle of a basket.

The containers also come in a bigger variety than the traditional rounded glass vase and are becoming more of a factor in an arrangement, Yocum said.

Dover said the new looks range from glazed ceramic to natural and woodsy. “We’ve got some really neat birch-wrapped containers, wooden boxes, some really unique containers that are metal with water tubes, resin pots that resemble oak.”

On a budget

Valentine orders from Beards run from $50 to $400, with the average at $150, Dover said. On the low end, planters of succulents are popular, while air plants, terrariums and compact European cut-flower arrangements are other options, he said.

“Another thing about our stuff is it’s built in a way where that structure, the flowers dry nice. It’s more of an art composition that dries and lasts for months. That is value.”

For someone on a limited budget, picking up a few flowers to deliver in person is a good idea, McKnight said.

“We’re going to have some incredible flowers, which is very exciting,” she said.

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 2:56 PM with the headline "Tips for buying Valentine flowers."