### Iris bouquets in Bali: what a long run does to a closed bud A good share of the addresses here sit 3 to 4 hours out. Uluwatu, Tabanan and the villas past them are at the far end of that, while Seminyak, Canggu and Sanur take 90 to 150 minutes. For most of what we sell, that gap decides the packing. For iris it decides very little, because the flower travels shut and opens a day after it lands. The bud is the entire shipment. Orders start from 650000 IDR, with payment through QRIS, GoPay, OVO, DANA or cash to the courier, and we work 9 AM to 10 PM. Above 30 °C, and in the humidity that comes with it, we use firm wrapping and a cooling element. The rainy months run November to March and the drier stretch is roughly April to October, though weather here moves the timing rather than the flower. Pressure is the hazard worth naming. The tissue on a bud is thin, a brown crease across it never recovers, and the mark is still sitting there once the flower opens, which is why iris travels flat and away from other orders. > "People ask whether iris can take the drive to Uluwatu. It can. What it cannot take is three other boxes stacked on top of it." > JFLOO florist #### Buying and receiving Most cut iris is grown from bulbs under glass, which is why it is on the bench for much of the year rather than in spring alone. Spring stems are still the better ones, thicker through the stem and carrying larger buds and more of them. By high summer the material thins out into narrow buds that open fast and shed just as fast, and the difference is obvious with two stems side by side. Three things to look at when the wrapping comes off: - A firm bud with a little colour at the tip and a seam that has not parted. - No brown creases anywhere along its length. - A straight green leaf top to bottom, since dry tips mean a long road. A wholly green bud with no colour anywhere was cut early and may never open at all. That is the one fault that cannot be fixed at the vase, and it is worth checking before the courier leaves. Access is the other thing that eats a delivery day here. Villa gates are shut, the person who opens is often staff, and the box can stand somewhere for a while before it reaches anybody. A closed bud is one of the few things on the list that comes through that unharmed, provided nothing is put on top of it. #### What it does to an arrangement Iris reads as a drawing rather than a mass, so it wants space around it and a plain surface behind it. On a long villa dining table that works against it, because a low dense arrangement holds the middle of a table better than three vertical stems ever will. On a console, a bedside table or anywhere with a blank wall behind, the same three stems carry the corner on their own. The leaves do the structural work. Long straight blades hold the line without any added greenery, and a bunch in a plain cylinder is finished the moment it goes in the water. Scent is the other thing to know. Iris has almost none, which suits a closed air conditioned room in a way that a heavily scented bouquet does not. Water goes in shallow and cool, two fingers topped up rather than a deep vase filled once, because the lower stem is fleshy and turns slimy under water. Pinch each spent flower off at its base as it goes and the stem keeps working through the buds behind it. Tell us the area, the delivery day and how long the recipient is staying. Iris bouquets in Bali make sense at the start of a stay rather than the end, and for anyone leaving in the next two days we will put the order onto something that opens in the box.