Rainbow Bouquets in Bali

Rainbow bouquets in Bali: the two occasions to think twice about

Most colour questions are a matter of taste. This one is not, because a treated flower carries an argument with it, and there are occasions where that argument gets in the way of the thing you were trying to say.

Condolence and remembrance are the clear no. Anything visibly worked on reads as theatre in that room, and nobody there has the patience to decode it.

Formal gifts are the second case, and the reasoning is different. A partner dinner, a supplier thank you, a handover in front of people who came in business clothes: in all of those the bouquet is read as a company decision, and a novelty finish undercuts the occasion rather than lifting it. Romance sits in the awkward middle, since a rainbow bunch is right between two people who share that humour and wrong for anyone expecting a serious gesture. That is not a thing worth guessing at when the sender is nine time zones away.

"The question we ask is not what the bouquet should look like. It is who else will be standing there when it is handed over."

— JFLOO florist

Everywhere else it does its job, and its job is the first minute.

How the colour actually gets in

A rainbow rose starts white. The stem is split lengthwise into several channels below the head, each channel stands in water tinted a different colour, and the flower draws that water up exactly as it would draw plain water. Dye reaches the petal veins and settles along them, so each channel feeds its own sector of the bud and the stripes follow the veining rather than a brush stroke.

Spray is the other method and the cruder one.

You can separate them by looking at the back of a petal and at the leaves. Colour taken up through the stem leaves the petal reverse paler and the foliage untouched, while aerosol lies in an even film and reaches both. Neither method makes the flower last longer. A split stem is mechanically weaker than a whole one, the dyeing itself uses part of the vase life, and the honest expectation is a shorter week than a plain white rose of the same batch would give.

What that means on this island

Imported roses at 60 to 90 cm and Ecuadorian stems up to 120 cm are the pale base these are built on, and the length is chosen by where the bouquet will stand rather than by how bright it should be. Tropical foliage goes in low, where it covers the split and gives the bunch something to sit on.

Humidity is the local complication. Above 30 °C with damp air we wrap firmly and add a cooling element, and with sprayed heads that matters twice over, since aerosol colour transfers onto damp hands and a damp hand is the normal state of anyone who has just come in from outside. During the rainy season from November to March we ask for the box to be opened indoors.

Distance decides the rest. Seminyak, Canggu and Sanur take 90 to 150 minutes, while Uluwatu, Tabanan and remote villas run to 3 or 4 hours, and a bouquet built on a split stem is the wrong one to send on the long leg late in the day. We work 9 AM to 10 PM, and for this category the hour the recipient is home matters more than the address.

Rainbow bouquets in Bali go mostly to children's birthdays, to resort addresses in Seminyak and Canggu, and to anyone who has been photographed with a lot of cream and white already.

Orders start at 650000 IDR and payment runs through QRIS, GoPay, OVO, DANA or cash to the courier. If the recipient dislikes treated flowers, say so when ordering and we will get the same brightness out of naturally coloured stems instead.