### Carnation bouquets in Dubai: two weeks, unless there is fruit on the table Ethylene is the whole story. Ripening fruit gives it off, and carnations answer more sharply than most cut flowers: buds stop opening, open blooms curl their petals inward, and a bunch with ten days left goes to sleep in one or two. A fruit bowl on the same table is the worst place in the house for them. Second worst is the top of a fridge in a small kitchen. A windowsill above ripening tomatoes is not far behind, and a hallway beside a door onto a busy street does the same job through exhaust fumes rather than fruit. Cigarette smoke belongs on the same list. Move the vase into another room and the same bouquet behaves like a different one. Nothing else shortens the flower in any comparable way. Two weeks in clean water is ordinary for a carnation and three is not unusual, which is more than almost anything else sold as a cut stem manages. #### What that means for a delivery here We deliver in 2 to 4 hours across Downtown, Business Bay, Marina, JBR, Palm Jumeirah and DIFC, and we work 9 AM to 10 PM. Orders start at 250 AED, with payment by Apple Pay or cash to the courier. Summer runs up to 40 °C and the coast adds humidity on top. That heat finishes a rose long before it troubles a carnation, because the head is dense, the petal count is high, and water loss through the bloom is slow. We pack insulated and keep the box out of the sun anyway, but this is one of the few flowers where a long drive in July is not the thing to worry about. The thing to worry about is where the vase ends up. Four questions worth asking before you send them: - Does the recipient keep fruit on the table where flowers usually stand? If so, name a different room when you write the card. - How long are they in the country? A fortnight of vase life is wasted on somebody flying out on Thursday. - Is the address an apartment or an office floor? Towers in Business Bay and DIFC need a floor and a unit number before the courier leaves. - What has been sent before? Carnations register with people who receive roses constantly. #### Cutting them, and the shape they arrive in The stem carries visible swollen nodes along its length. Cut between them and never through one, because water moves poorly across a node, and a stem trimmed at the joint drinks far less than one trimmed a centimetre below. The rest is routine: leaves off the lower third, clean vase, fresh water every two or three days, a fresh cut each time. Modern bunches look nothing like the short red singles that gave the flower its reputation. Spray varieties carry several heads of different sizes on one stem, the colour range runs through dusty pinks, apricot, cream, lime and two-tone edges, and a round spiral build with varied stem heights takes care of the last of the association. Colour does more work here than the build does. Dusty pink, apricot and cream are the shades ordered most often, while lime and the two-tone edges are what people photograph and then order again a month later. > "Carnations come back to us as repeat orders more than anything else on the list. Somebody tries them once and rings again a month later, while the first bunch is still standing." > JFLOO florist They cope with a warm room as well. A flat that roses find too hot does not shorten them much, which is worth knowing in a city where the difference between indoors and outdoors runs all year. Send them where the flowers have to survive without attention, and give us the floor along with the address.