Flower baskets in Chicago: one for the funeral home, one for the family
Flower baskets in Chicago follow a plain rule of US sympathy etiquette: a large arrangement from a group goes to the funeral home, while a smaller one from a close friend goes to the family's home instead. A basket suits either address, since it needs no vase and arrives ready to set straight down. The first decision is who is sending it and where it should go; the flower, the colour and the size follow from that.
A group basket for the funeral home, a smaller one for the family
Coworkers, a club or a whole office usually send their sympathy basket to the funeral home, timed for the visitation, while a single close friend more often sends theirs straight to the family's home. Etiquette sets no fixed day for either gesture: a basket for the family can follow later in the week, once the first rush of calls and arrangements has settled.
The sender shapes the size as much as the address. A basket from a group tends to reach for the largest option, sorted by size. A hundred and one white Ecuadorian roses is one of the large basket options. A friend sending something smaller for the house has no need for that scale.
Because the stems sit in wet foam rather than water, the basket stands on a table or a sideboard without anyone hunting for a vase, which matters most at a family home already full of visitors and casseroles. In Jewish mourning, flowers are not sent to the funeral or to the shiva; food, a card or a donation take their place instead.
The card that comes with any basket costs nothing extra, and whether it carries a name or stays unsigned is entirely the sender's call.
Which flower fills a Chicago basket, and when lilies stay out
Lilies are greenhouse flowers, cut somewhere in the world every month of the year, so a lily basket can be ordered in January as easily as in June. Every part of the plant is a problem for cats, though: the petals, the leaves, the pollen and even the water in the vase are toxic to them, so a house with a cat is safer with a basket of roses or daisies instead.
Lily pollen also marks fabric the moment it touches it. Florists lift the anthers once a bloom has opened, and pollen that lands on a sleeve or a tablecloth comes off with sticky tape rather than water.
Most cut roses sold in the United States travel up from Latin America, and JFLOO lists Ecuadorian roses in this section, grown for a long stem and a large head. "French" on a rose basket, as in one called 201 French Red Roses, is not a variety but something the florist does by hand, folding each outer petal back to open the bloom further; the name says nothing about the arrangement's shape or size.
Victorian flower dictionaries gave colours their own meanings: red for passion, pink for something gentler, white for purity or simplicity, though no two of those dictionaries agree entirely. The colour range is worth a look rather than a fixed rule.
Flower basket delivery in Chicago, then the first days in foam
A JFLOO florist photographs the finished basket before the courier leaves, so the sender sees it before it is on its way. Delivery is free within the centre, and every other zone carries a flat rate shown before payment, listed under zone rates. Most orders go out the day they are placed, and the exact window sits in the basket's own listing.
The courier hands the basket over in person, by its handle, with the card tucked in alongside it.
The foam takes a thin stream of water across its whole exposed surface every day, and the basket is never tilted to pour it in. Kept that way, a basket of roses or lilies lasts about as long as the same flowers would in a vase, while foam that has dried out barely takes water back at all. Through Chicago's winters and summers, both the dry heat of radiators and a hot afternoon work against a basket the same way they work against any cut flower.
Choosing among flower baskets in Chicago starts with what matters most. A flower already decided points to the full list sorted by flower; a basket meant for a group points back to the larger sizes instead. For an arrangement where the florist does the choosing, a Signature Basket called Mia is built that way, mixing stems rather than naming one.