### Alstroemeria bouquets in Bali: volume that survives the drive Count the heads rather than the stems. Each stem carries an umbel of several blooms, so seven stems fill a vase the way fifteen single-headed flowers would, and five already read as a full bunch from across a room. A rose grows its outline by adding stems. Alstroemeria builds outward from every one it has, which is why fifteen stems become genuinely large without costing what fifteen roses cost. On a long villa table that arithmetic is the whole reason the flower gets ordered. Head size is what you give up. Individual blooms are small and marked with fine veins and speckles on the inner petals, so at close range the bunch reads as detail work. Where an occasion needs one large head at the front, alstroemeria sits beside imported roses and lets them carry it. Colour behaves well in quantity. Because each umbel mixes open and closed buds, a single-shade bunch still holds two or three tones across its width. #### Distance is the local variable Bali is not one delivery zone. Seminyak, Canggu and Sanur take 90 to 150 minutes; Uluwatu, Tabanan and the villas further out take up to 3 to 4 hours, and a bunch that spends four hours in a box has to be packed for it. We work 9 AM to 10 PM, orders start from 650000 IDR, and payment goes through QRIS, GoPay, OVO, DANA or cash to the courier. Above 30 °C, and the humidity here rarely lets up, we use firm wrapping and a cooling element. Hollow stems lose water quickly, and an hour standing in sun at a villa gate does more damage than the whole drive. Boxes travel upright. Flexible stems curl at the tip when they lie flat, permanently, and no arranging afterwards hides it. Four things worth telling us when the order goes in: - The area. Berawa and Legian sit in one window, Uluwatu in another, and the difference is measured in hours. - Villa or hotel, with the name. Nusa Dua resorts and the addresses around Seminyak each have their own way of taking a delivery, and the gate is often the slow part. - How open the umbels should be on the day. Half-closed stems look modest for a day and reach full width by the third. - The vase waiting at the other end, if you know it. A narrow neck squeezes the umbels and the outer blooms crease. #### In the room Wide-mouthed glass suits them. The stems lean apart, the umbels stay clear of each other, and the bunch keeps the airiness that made it worth the money. They are close to scentless, which matters on an open terrace where the food and the sea are already doing that work. The calendar counts for less here than the thermometer. April to October is the drier stretch and November to March brings the rain, but a bouquet indoors meets the same warm, wet air in either half of the year, and the vase routine does not change with the month. Most of these bunches land at ocean villas and at resort addresses around Seminyak and Canggu. Jimbaran wedding venues take a share, and there the width per stem is worth more than one large head at the front. Ubud dinners are the other regular, and the drive up is long enough that the box goes in standing and stays that way. > "A villa dining table needs more flower than people expect. Seven stems of this cover it, because every stem is really several." > JFLOO florist Alstroemeria lasts around two weeks in clean water, and the foliage decides that number more than the flowers do. Strip the lower third going into the vase, pull yellow leaves as they show, pinch spent blooms out of the umbel at the base, and change the water every couple of days with a fresh cut each time. Tell us the date it has to look its best and we will pick the stems to match.