Flower Baskets by Type in Bali

Flower baskets by type in Bali: the one that stays in the house

Baskets are sorted by type because the three of them end differently. One is kept until the flowers give up, one is cleared away by staff the same night, and one is pulled apart before dinner is over. The ending decides the build, and the build cannot be argued with afterwards.

Underneath, all of them share a single idea. A soaked block of florist's foam sits inside the weave behind a plastic liner, the water travels with the arrangement, and somebody adds a little from above every day or two. Nothing at all is asked of the person receiving it, which is why the format suits an address where nobody knows whether there is a vase in the cupboard.

The one that gets kept

This basket has to survive ordinary life in a house. It is put down on a table, moved when the table is needed, carried out to a terrace and back, and finally set on a shelf narrower than anyone expected. Anything built tall and loose gives up after two or three of those moves and stands crooked for the rest of its life.

Then there is the second life. The weave outlasts everything in it, and a basket with a flat base and an honest frame stays in the house long after the flowers have gone, holding fruit, cables or a potted plant.

A saucer goes under that pot. Water running into natural fibre in this humidity leaves a mark that never washes out.

Getting one there

Seminyak, Canggu and Sanur sit in a 90 to 150 minute window. Uluwatu, Tabanan and the remote villas run up to 3 to 4 hours, and a basket going that far is planted more tightly, because a long road loosens everything that was loose to begin with.

Four addresses take most of them:

• A rented house in Seminyak or Canggu, where the basket is the only container in the place.
• An ocean villa, where staff accept the delivery and the guests see it hours later.
• A hotel in Nusa Dua, or The St. Regis Bali Resort, Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan, Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, The Legian Seminyak and Alila Villas Uluwatu, all of which move a wide flat base more easily than a tall vase.
• A dinner in Ubud, where the basket goes onto the table already built and stays there.

Above 30 °C in high humidity we close the packing more firmly and add a cooling element, and every bit of that comes off the moment it lands. In the rainy season from November to March we add route time. Hours run 9 AM to 10 PM, orders start at 650000 IDR, and payment goes through QRIS, GoPay, OVO, DANA or cash to the courier.

What goes in

Imported roses at 60 to 90 cm are cut short for a basket, and the Ecuadorian stems up to 120 cm are cut shorter still. Seasonal peonies, macrophylla hydrangea, lisianthus and ranunculus fill the body of the bowl. Orchids take the upper lines, and tropical foliage covers the foam along the rim.

"People ask how long the flowers last and never ask about the basket. The weave is still on a shelf in that kitchen long after the arrangement has gone."

— JFLOO florist

Ask what the arrangement will be doing an hour after it lands rather than what the occasion is called. Flower baskets by type in Bali are built on the morning they go out, and the type sets the base, the height and the size of the water block before a single stem is cut to length.