All Saints Day in Madrid

All Saints Day in Madrid: choosing white roses and lilies for remembrance

All Saints Day in Madrid falls in a section built almost entirely from white roses and white lilies. In France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary and Croatia, large chrysanthemums are a symbol of death, kept for funerals and graves. Choosing between them comes down to three things: the shade, the wrapping and the number of stems.

White roses and lilies: what the colours say on a day of remembrance

In Japan the chrysanthemum belongs to the imperial house, and in China it stands for longevity: what a flower means depends on where the recipient lives. Victorian flower dictionaries read a white rose as purity, a pink one as gentle affection and a red one as passion. The dictionaries never agreed with each other, though, and the reading changes from one source to the next.

That spread of meaning leaves room for a bouquet here to carry a second colour without losing its white base. The 51 Red and White Roses shifts the tone towards red, while the 21 Pink Roses in White and the 101 Pink Roses in White do the same with pink. White still sits underneath as the base colour in each one.

Dutch, French or wrapped: choosing white roses and the stem count

Choosing among white roses starts with how each one is grown and finished, not only with how it's wrapped. Dutch describes the classic greenhouse varieties grown for the cut-flower trade. French isn't a variety at all: it's a technique, where the florist turns the outer petals back by hand.

The same stem count can look completely different depending on the wrap. Fifteen white roses come in coffee wrapping, in a powder finish or in kraft paper, three different wraps for the same count. Thirty-one White Roses with Eucalyptus are gathered in a spiral instead, with every stem set at the same slight angle so they cross at one point, a hand's width below the heads.

The count itself carries its own custom. In Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and most of the former Soviet Union, an even number of flowers is brought in remembrance, while an odd number is given to the living. Outside that tradition, a dozen is the usual choice. Anyone who needs a different count can write to a florist, who will put one together or build it from scratch and send a photo and a price before payment.

At the top of the range, 151 White Roses in a Basket is one of the flower baskets: it stands without needing a vase, its stems set into a block of damp foam. That foam is watered daily, in a thin stream across its whole surface.

A lily's head is large enough that only a handful of stems reads as a full bouquet. That's roughly the idea behind the Bouquet of 7 White Lilies: a useful starting count, not a fixed rule.

Pollen is the one part of a lily worth planning for. Once a lily opens, the anthers are removed; if pollen still lands on fabric, sticky tape lifts it off, and rubbing only grinds it in. Every part of the plant, including the pollen and the water left standing in the vase, is toxic to cats; a home with a cat is better off with roses instead.

Cut roses hold for around a week once they're in water. The care is ordinary: cut the stems at an angle, change the water every day or two, and keep the vase away from radiators, direct sun and fruit.

Sending flowers for All Saints Day in Madrid from another country asks for little. If you do not have the address, the recipient's phone is enough, and the courier receives only the recipient's name and address. A card can carry a message or stay blank, and nobody rings ahead of the delivery unless the sender has asked for that call, except where a building needs a call before the courier can get in.

Every bouquet is put together to order, with the flowers bought only once payment has gone through. A photo of the finished bouquet reaches the sender before the courier sets off, and there's still time at that point to ask for a change. Orders for a set date and time are taken for any zone, and the earlier one is placed, the more time slots there are to pick from.

Payment runs through Visa or Mastercard, and the courier is never handed anything extra on top. How soon a bouquet can travel is shown on its own page, and delivery details has the rest.

Choosing a shade of white is a straightforward place to start. Keeping to one kind of flower is simplest among the single-variety bouquets. The full bouquet range sets roses and lilies side by side, and the designer bouquets build a finished look around white for anyone choosing on colour alone.