Bright bouquets: the flowers that carry strong colour
Saturated colour is not evenly available across the flower market. Some species hold deep pigment naturally and keep it as they age, others fade towards pastel within a couple of days, and a few of the strongest shades on offer were never grown that way at all.
Knowing which is which saves a good deal of disappointment on day three.
Where the strong shades come from
Gerbera, chrysanthemum and dahlia carry dense colour right through the petal, so an orange gerbera stays orange until the head goes over. Tulips do the opposite: they keep growing in the vase, open wide in warmth and pale noticeably as they do it.
Ranunculus and anemone hold intensity well and bring a dark centre that gives the arrangement weight. Sunflowers and craspedia sit at the loud end of yellow and hold it. Alstroemeria and carnation cover the middle of the range cheaply and last longer than almost anything else in the bunch.
Blue is the shade to ask about specifically. No rose, chrysanthemum or gerbera produces blue pigment, so anything in that colour has been dyed after cutting, and it fades unevenly rather than gracefully. Delphinium, hydrangea, muscari and iris are the honest routes to it.
Season decides the palette
The deepest colours come and go with the growing year. Late summer and autumn bring dahlias and chrysanthemums in rust, burnt orange and dark red, which is the richest the market gets.
Spring is a different kind of bright, cleaner and cooler: tulips, ranunculus, anemones and hyacinths.
Midwinter narrows things down to greenhouse stock, and strong colour then means gerbera, carnation and dyed material rather than seasonal blooms, which is worth knowing before ordering a specific shade in January.
Vase life
Strong colour and long life do not always go together, and the mix determines how long the whole thing looks right.
Gerbera stems are hollow and soft, so they bend at the neck once the water sours, and they need a clean vase and shallow water rather than a deep one. Dahlias drink heavily and want topping up daily. Tulips lean towards the light and keep elongating, which pulls a tidy bouquet out of shape in two days unless it is recut.
Chrysanthemum, alstroemeria and carnation are the workhorses that hold the arrangement together after the showier flowers have finished.
Who they suit
Birthdays, recoveries, a welcome home, a congratulation to someone who dresses in colour and would find a pale bouquet forgettable.
They also earn their place in winter, when the light outside is flat for months and one saturated bunch changes a room more than the same flowers would in June.
Bright bouquets read from a distance better than any other kind, so fifteen stems in deep colour carry further across a room than thirty pale ones. If the delivery crosses Fethiye in summer heat, ask for tulips to be left out of the mix, since they are the first to open past their best in a warm van.
