Birthday in Dublin

Flowers for a birthday in Dublin: roses and lilies, made to order

Grafton Street's family stalls, on the Chatham, Harry and Duke Street corners, have traded on licensed pitches since the 1940s and sell roses, lilies and tulips all year round. A birthday in Dublin can mean a bouquet built from those same two flowers, only made to order: the stems are bought after the order is paid, put together by a florist and handed over at the door. So the real choice starts with who the flowers are for.

Courier delivery is organised by postcode zone across the city, and the delivery zones page shows which zone covers a given address. Ordering from outside Ireland, or for a guest in a Dublin hotel, works the same way: the order form just needs the recipient's name and phone number, and the reception details go through ordering for a hotel or from abroad.

Roses and lilies: what Dublin buys all year, made to order

Grafton Street's stalls sell lilies through December too, alongside the holiday trade, so a lily bouquet suits a birthday in the run-up to Christmas just as well as one in July. A lily arrangement can stand on its own as several stems of the same bloom, or be paired with gerbera daisies for a brighter mix of colour and shape.

One thing rules lilies out straight away: every part of the plant is toxic to cats, the petals, the leaves, the pollen and even the water left standing in the vase, so a household with a cat is safer with roses instead.

Lily pollen also stains fabric if it brushes against a sleeve or a tablecloth, which is why florists remove the anthers once a bloom has opened. If pollen does land on clothing, lifting it off with sticky tape works far better than rubbing it in.

Red, white with pink or softened with lisianthus: choosing the rose

Victorian flower dictionaries gave each colour its own message: red stood for passion, pink for a gentler feeling, white for purity and yellow for friendship, though the lists from that era never fully agreed with one another.

A French rose is not a separate variety but a finish a florist gives it, turning the outer petals back by hand so the bloom opens wider and looks fuller. Eleven Red French Roses reads as a declaration and suits a partner, while Eleven White and Pink Roses carries the same gesture in a softer colour, for a parent, a sister or a close friend. Roses with Lisianthus loosens the look further, mixing in a ruffled flower for anyone a single rose would feel too formal for.

Dublin's roses cover every one of those colours and finishes, whatever the birthday calls for.

Hydrangea for a June birthday, peony-shaped roses for a winter one

Grafton Street's stalls bring in peonies and hydrangeas through the summer months, which makes a hydrangea bouquet a natural choice for a birthday falling in June or July.

Hydrangea drinks more water than most cut flowers, taking some of it in through the petals as well as the stem. A head that has gone soft can usually be revived by lowering the whole bloom into cool water for an hour or two.

Outside summer, peony-shaped roses fill the same role. Most are David Austin varieties, bred with dense, many-petalled heads that echo a peony's shape, and a florist can build a bouquet with them in any month of the year. Dublin's mixed bouquets bring hydrangea, peony-shaped roses and other seasonal flowers together in one arrangement.

Birthday flower delivery in Dublin with a card and a small cake

A card comes with every order at no extra cost, and the message on it can carry a name or stay anonymous, whichever the sender prefers.

A bento cake is worth adding too: a small, hand-sized cake that started in South Korea, iced with a short message rather than a full design. Like any cream cake, it only holds up for a couple of hours at room temperature, so it belongs in the cold once the candles are out, while the flowers go straight into a vase of water.

Before the courier leaves, the finished bouquet is photographed, and the florist hands it over in person rather than leaving it unattended. How soon it arrives is shown on the bouquet's own page rather than promised here, since that depends on the order; most birthday bouquets go out the same day they are booked, and delivery to central Dublin costs nothing extra.

Choosing where to start is simplest by flower. Lilies, kept well away from any cat, work on their own as a mono bouquets arrangement. Roses cover everything from a quiet gesture to a bold one, and a card or a bento cake from the gifts to go with the bouquet range rounds off any of them.