Flower baskets in Bangkok: what goes in, and the flower kept for coffins
In Thailand the tuberose is known as the funeral flower: it decorates coffins, and it is neither given as a present nor set beside a sick person's bed. Flower baskets in Bangkok are made with roses, lilies and daisies, and choosing one comes down to the flower, the size and the person it is for.
Tuberose for the coffin, roses and lilies for the basket
That funeral association rules the tuberose out of any basket meant for a visit or a sickroom, and the lotus follows a similar logic: in Thailand it belongs to temples and offerings rather than to romance, so neither flower turns up as a gift.
Thailand grows some of its own roses in the Chiang Mai highlands, while a larger share crosses the border from Kunming in China. The city's bigger baskets are built around Ecuadorian stems rather than local ones, counted at fifty-one or a hundred and one, with the hundred-and-one-stem version sold in red or in white.
A whole basket can also be built from lilies alone, or mixed with roses and daisies in one arrangement. Lilies are poisonous to cats, so a basket built around them is worth avoiding in a home where one lives, and that is worth checking before the order goes in.
Daisies sit at the modest end of the same line-up. A basket built mostly from them reads lighter and less formal than one built around roses, and that difference alone can decide which to send without needing a named product to make the point.
From a designer's mix to a hundred red roses: scaling the gesture
Designer Basket No. 6 is a mixed arrangement a florist puts together without a fixed brief, built from whatever is in season that week; the basket speaks for itself rather than needing a description here. At the other end of the same idea, 51 Ecuadorian Roses in a Basket and 101 Red Roses in a Basket are two sizes of one gesture, and the by colour subdivision is where the hundred-and-one-stem version is picked in red or in white.
Either way the basket arrives with its own handle and stands without a vase, straight onto a table or the floor by a door. The by size page groups the larger baskets by size, so the scale can be set before the colour is.
For anything that does not fit a named basket, the florist can be told the occasion and the budget in a message, and sends back a few photographed options with prices before any payment is taken. Flower-giving in Bangkok also follows its own dates, from Songkran in April through to the twelfth of August, covered with the city's other Thai dates and customs.
Giving a flower basket in Bangkok: right hand, card read alone
A gift in Thailand is handed over with the right hand, and recipients usually wait until they are alone before opening it. A card tucked into the basket is normally read once the sender is no longer there, and the card itself is free: it can be signed or left blank.
Every basket is put together to order once payment has gone through, and a photo comes back before it leaves the workshop, in time to ask for a change if something needs adjusting. Most orders reach the recipient on the day they are placed.
In the centre, delivery is free, and other districts are charged at a flat rate under the delivery zones. Once it arrives, the only upkeep a basket needs is topping up the water in its foam block every day, over the whole surface rather than just the middle.
Choosing a flower basket in Bangkok usually starts with the flower itself, and the baskets by flower subdivision sorts them that way before size or colour comes into it. Anyone already set on roses can look at the full roses section, which runs well beyond basket format alone. Flower baskets in Bangkok after that come down to how large a gesture is needed and who is on the receiving end.