Baskets with ranunculus in Bali: seated once, and heat is the thing to plan around
A hollow stem cannot be pushed into foam. Force it and the tube collapses at exactly the point that has to carry water, and the flower is finished before the next one goes in.
So the channel is made first, with a skewer, to the depth that stem will sit at. The flower then goes into a ready hole with no pressure on it at all. Cutting is done with a knife and straight across, since blades that crush the tube close it in the same movement.
Nothing in the basket can be moved afterwards.
Pull a stem out and it will not go back. The channel has been worked open, it no longer holds water at that point, and a flower reseated there lasts a day or two at most. Everything about the build is therefore decided before the first stem goes in, which is why we ask about the room and the surface at the order stage rather than at the door.
"We work out the whole arrangement dry, on the bench, before anything is seated. There is no second attempt inside a block of foam."
— JFLOO florist
Orders start at 650000 IDR and payment goes through QRIS, GoPay, OVO, DANA or cash to the courier. We deliver 9 AM to 10 PM, in 90 to 150 minutes for Seminyak, Canggu and Sanur, and in 3 to 4 hours for Uluwatu, Tabanan and the remote villas.
Seating order follows from the same rule. The tallest and most awkward stems go in first while there is still room to work a skewer at an angle, the shorter ones fill downwards, and the greenery that covers the block goes in around them at the end. Working the other way round means reaching over seated heads with a hand full of foliage, and every one of those reaches is a chance to knock a head out of true.
Heat is the real constraint
Ranunculus belongs to the cold half of the year, and this island does not have one. Above 30 °C the buds open faster than anybody plans for, and once a flower has opened right out it has nowhere left to go except to drop petals.
That does not rule the flower out. It changes how far ahead a basket can be ordered, and where it can stand once it arrives.
We pack firmly and add a cooling element in hot humid weather, and for a villa in Uluwatu or Tabanan we push the delivery into a morning slot so the arrangement is not sitting in a vehicle through the middle of the day. On the receiving end the useful moves are short:
- an air conditioned room rather than an open terrace
- a spot away from the direct line of a fan
- water topped up slowly at the rim on the day it arrives, before the block has a chance to dry at the top.
Ranunculus in Bali is a flower for the days right after delivery. Ordering it early for a Jimbaran wedding or an Ubud dinner usually means it peaks before the date it was bought for, so we would rather build it on the morning it is needed and drive it out warm.
What it is sent for
Baskets with ranunculus in Bali suit a message that does not need scale. A birthday, a thank you, a get well, an apology that needs to arrive today. The recipient takes the whole thing at the door, puts it down, and does nothing else with it.
Spent heads come out with their stems and the empty socket gets covered with a leaf.
There is one address type we steer people away from. A basket sent to a hotel in Nusa Dua for a guest arriving in a few days will do most of its opening in a room nobody is in, and by the time the guest walks in the arrangement has already spent its best days. Send it for the day of arrival, or send it to a home address where somebody sees it from the start.
Tell us the day it has to look its best and we will build backwards from that, because with this flower in this climate the date is the specification.
