Flowers in Boxes in Los Angeles

Flowers in boxes in Los Angeles: a hat box, a handbag or jute

Los Angeles keeps its wholesale Flower District, the largest in the US, inside the Fashion District, and flowers in boxes in Los Angeles borrow two shapes from that neighbour: the hat box and the handbag. Inside either one the stems sit in wet floral foam, so no vase is needed, and the real choice starts with how the gift will travel and where it will end up standing.

Lid or handles: what a hat box and a flower handbag each do

A hat box opens from the top, and the flowers show the moment the lid comes off, which is part of why this is the biggest style on offer here. The round shape goes back to the cardboard boxes that hatters once used to carry hats between shop and house, long before anyone thought to put roses inside one.

A flower handbag works differently. It is carried by its handles, like an actual handbag, rather than held against the chest the way a hand-tied bouquet is. That makes it the better pick when the flowers still have somewhere to go after they change hands, a desk, a car, a hotel lobby, rather than a table they will simply sit on for the evening.

Whichever shape turns up, the mechanics underneath are identical. Both stand on a block of wet floral foam that the stems are pushed into, so there is no water to pour in and no glass vase waiting at the other end.

Roses flown in, hydrangea and lisianthus: choosing what fills the box

California grows more than three-quarters of the flowers grown in the US, yet almost four-fifths of the cut flowers sold in the country are imported, over half of that from Colombia and roughly a quarter from Ecuador. A rose in a Los Angeles box has, more often than not, already flown a long way before it reaches the Flower District.

Ecuadorian roses, French roses, Misty, lisianthus, hydrangea, lilies, gerberas and hyacinths all appear in the Los Angeles catalogue. A French rose is not a separate variety but a technique; the florist bends the outer petals back by hand to open the bloom wider.

Peonies keep to their own weeks rather than running all year round. They reach LAX from the Netherlands between late April and June, then again from Australia from October, and look their best only inside those windows. Anyone wanting something sweet alongside the flowers can add macarons in a box, ordered as its own small box rather than tucked inside the bigger one.

Jute, wood or a hook: boxes meant to stay in a Los Angeles home

A jute planter, a wooden crate and a hanging basket are not opened like a hat box or carried onward like a handbag. Each one is simply set down, or hung, exactly where it is delivered, and left there.

The foam inside still needs daily care. Water goes in with a thin stream across the whole open surface, not just around the stems, and the arrangement is never tilted to pour it in faster. Watered this way every day, the foam keeps flowers about as long as a vase would; once it dries out, it barely takes water back at all.

Los Angeles heat, from the coast inland to the valley, affects how often that watering matters, and hotels, LAX and orders from abroad, or a hot day across town covers the rest of what a box needs once it arrives. Each box is put together to order, and the florist sends a photo before the courier sets off; most orders are handed over the same day they are placed, and the exact timing for a given box is shown on its own page. Flower box delivery in Los Angeles runs by zone, and the delivery zones are listed there.

A hat box is the one to start with if the flowers will be opened at a table. A flower handbag suits a gift that still has somewhere to go afterwards, and jute pots or crates and hanging baskets suit whatever is meant to stay exactly where it lands.