7 roses in Bali: what actually shortens a small bunch
Seven stems are a short list of enemies rather than a long one, and none of them is a matter of taste. Direct sun is the first. Ripening fruit on the same table is the second, because it releases a gas that ages cut flowers whether or not anybody can smell it. Water left standing for several days is the third, and it announces itself before anyone thinks to look at the vase.
The fourth is local. Air conditioning is how a room here becomes liveable, and a bunch sitting in the stream from a unit dries at the petal edge faster than the stem can refill it. Moving the vase a metre sideways solves it.
- Sun through glass, and any surface that gets the afternoon.
- A fruit bowl within arm's reach of the vase.
- The direct line of an air conditioning outlet.
Everything else is maintenance. Change the water every second day, rinse the vessel rather than topping it up, and give each stem a fresh angled cut when you do.
"The bunch that lasts is not usually the better bunch. It is the one somebody moved off the wrong table on the first evening."
— JFLOO florist
The catalogue starts at 650000 IDR, and payment goes through QRIS, GoPay, OVO, DANA or cash to the courier.
Humidity, rain and the drive
The climate is humid tropical, with a drier season roughly April to October and rain from November to March. Above 30 °C and in high humidity we use firm wrapping and a cooling element, which holds the bunch together on the road and adds very little weight at this count.
Rain changes the last few metres rather than the drive. Paper takes the water on the way from a gate to a door, and by the time the box is open the collar has softened.
That is why the wet months push us toward a box for anything going to a villa. It also means the check on the flowers happens indoors on a floor rather than in somebody's arms in a garden.
Open sided rooms are the trap nobody expects. A terrace is the pleasantest place in a villa and the worst place for a vase, because the room sits at outdoor temperature all day and the air across it never stops moving. Seven stems have no reserve to spend on that. Put the vase inside and carry it out for the evening if it needs to be seen there.
Distance is the other variable and it is not small. Seminyak, Canggu and Sanur come in at 90 to 150 minutes, while Uluwatu, Tabanan and remote villas run up to 3 to 4 hours, and we deliver from 9 AM to 10 PM. Seven stems handled properly hold for about a week, and a long drive spends part of that week before the bunch is ever in water.
Where the count sits
Seven is the point where a small bunch turns into a proper bouquet. The heads close into a round top, it still travels in one hand, and it goes into an ordinary vase without anybody clearing a shelf to make room for it.
For a birthday, a thank you or a first visit to somebody's house that scale is right.
For a wedding at a venue in Jimbaran or a large anniversary it reads thin, and taking a bigger count is more honest than padding seven roses out with filler. Imported roses arrive at 60 to 90 cm and Ecuadorian stems reach 120 cm, so if the room needs presence, the extra height is the better lever than the extra greenery.
An ocean villa and a dinner in Ubud want different builds of the same seven. Tell us which it is, and whether the bunch will be met at the door or left with somebody until the evening, because on a 3 to 4 hour run that second answer changes what we pack around the stems.
