Eid al-Adha in Belek

Eid al-Adha in Belek: tall white roses, lilies and choosing the bouquet

Among the bouquets for Eid al-Adha in Belek is 51 Tall White Roses, with stems that run from seventy centimetres to a metre and more. Stems that long are the kind grown on Ecuador's Andean flower farms, at roughly 2,800 to 3,000 metres, where the day near the equator holds close to twelve hours all year round. The grid here is almost entirely white, so choosing a bouquet comes down to the flower, the stem count and the format rather than the colour.

Eid al-Adha flowers: white roses, lilies and cream

White roses carry the section, and the range runs from fifteen stems up to a hundred and fifty-one. Some come as spray roses, several small heads on one stem, some are wrapped with eucalyptus, and some are Dutch-grown roses sold under their own name. Among them, the Tall White Roses stretch from seventy centimetres to a metre and more, the kind of length generally linked to Ecuador's Andean farms, prized for their steady daylight near the equator.

Two bouquets are built from lilies instead of roses, and one pairs white hydrangea with peony roses, the rounded, many-petalled kind bred to look like a peony. Cream roses appear as their own bouquet too. Lilies and hydrangea carry large, heavy heads, so a handful of stems already reads as a full bouquet, unlike a rose, which needs company to look dense. Only two bouquets in the section break from white: one sets pink roses against a white background, another mixes red and white roses.

A dense rose bouquet needs far more stems than a lily one, and the grid lays out that scale plainly:

• twenty-five to thirty-nine stems — a bouquet with visible shape, still light enough to hold in one hand;
• fifty-one stems — the size where the roses start to look like a solid mass of white;
• a hundred and one stems — the largest hand-held count in the section, before the format changes to a basket.

At a hundred and fifty-one stems, the largest count in the section, the format switches from a hand-tied bouquet to a basket. A bunch, by contrast, keeps the stems long and loose, tied together rather than arranged. A basket needs no vase: the wicker itself does not hold water, so a plastic liner and a block of wet floral foam sit inside it, and the stems are pushed into the foam. That foam wants watering every day, over its whole visible surface, because once it dries out it barely takes water back in. A cylinder is simply a bouquet format, a tall glass vase that holds the stems, not a guarantee of how long the flowers will last.

Orders for a set date and time are accepted for any zone, and the earlier the order goes in, the more time slots are still open. Eid al-Adha itself is set by the lunar calendar, so the date can shift by a day or two once it is confirmed. Most orders are still delivered the same day they are placed, and the actual timing for a given bouquet is shown on its own page rather than promised here.

Before the courier leaves, the finished bouquet is photographed, and that photo is the point to ask for any change. The card that goes with it is free, and it can carry a message or stay unsigned. An address helps but is not required: the recipient's phone number is enough for the courier to find them. Payment is taken online by Visa or Mastercard, and nothing further is paid to the courier on arrival. The delivery terms page sets out how a date and address are confirmed.

How long white roses and lilies last

A fresh cut, at an angle, gives any stem a better start, and any leaf that would sit below the waterline should come off before the flowers go in water. Changing the water every day or two keeps it from working against the stems, and keeping the vase away from radiators, direct sun and a bowl of fruit slows nothing down but stops it speeding up. Kept this way, a white rose lasts around a week.

Lilies need one extra step: once a flower opens, the pollen-carrying anthers are best removed, since lily pollen stains fabric and skin. A stain from it should never be rubbed in; sticky tape lifted straight off the surface takes the pollen with it far more cleanly. Lilies are poisonous to cats, so a home with a cat is one place they are worth leaving out of the bouquet altogether.

A basket of white roses suits a home where no one has to find a vase, while a bunch or a hand-tied bouquet works where the stems can go straight into water. For anything outside this selection, the full flower catalogue covers the rest of what is in season, and other occasions lists the dates a bouquet might be needed for next.