Flowers in Boxes in Barcelona

Flowers in boxes in Barcelona: a 29 °C August, foam instead of a vase

During the hot afternoons in July and August, Barcelona reaches about 29°C with humidity close to seventy per cent, and flowers in boxes in Barcelona rest on wet floral foam inside the box, so the recipient needs no vase. Which box suits a gift best depends on one thing: whether it travels on afterwards or stays exactly where it lands.

Colombian and Ecuadorian roses, or lilac in a tote

Roses are the main flower in this section, and the supply explains why. Mercabarna-flor's spring forecast puts roughly eighty per cent of the roses sold in Catalonia on flights from Colombia, with another fifteen per cent from Ecuador: both are Andean roses.

"15 Jumilia French Roses in a Box" names one variety and one technique at once. Jumilia opens into a large bud with a white base and a pink edge. The word "French" has nothing to do with where the rose grew: it describes a florist bending the outer petals back by hand, so the flower looks fuller and more open than it would straight off the stem.

A box without roses still has an answer: "Fresh Tote with Lilac" carries lilac in a bag built like a handbag, and the name says as much as needs saying about what is inside. For anything else, a florist can be told the occasion and the budget directly; a photo and a price come back before any payment is taken.

A lid kept level on a Barcelona street, or a bag on the arm

A hat box closes under its own lid, and the person carrying it keeps it level, held out in front rather than swung at the side. That stillness is the point: the flowers inside have nowhere to shift.

A flower handbag works differently. Its handles let it be carried like any other bag, on the arm, which suits a gift that still has somewhere to go, on to dinner or on to a friend's flat, rather than one that gets opened on arrival.

The hat box is built for the second kind of journey, the short one: a flat in Eixample, a house in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, somewhere the box is opened on arrival. Either way, the courier hands it over in person, with the card that travelled alongside it.

A jute pot, a hanging basket or macarons for the flat

A jute pot or a crate is simply set down wherever it arrives, no further handling needed. A hanging basket, by contrast, is meant to hang, which makes it a gift for a hallway or a balcony rather than a table.

A box of macarons sent alongside the flowers turns the gift into two things at once, flowers and something sweet, which suits an occasion meant for a whole household rather than one person at a desk.

Whichever box it is, the foam inside needs water every day, poured in a thin stream across its whole surface rather than aimed at one spot, and the box itself should never be tilted.

A photo of the finished box goes to the sender before the courier sets off, and most orders reach their recipient on the day they are placed; the exact timing for a given box is shown on its own page rather than promised here. For the practicalities of flower box delivery in Barcelona, start there. To choose the box itself, hat boxes and flower handbags suit a gift on the move, while jute pots are the simplest choice for one that is staying put.