Plants in Madrid, in a country of ten million poinsettias
Spain grew more than ten million poinsettias in 2025, most of them in Almería, Catalonia and Valencia, around a tenth of all those sold across Europe, and the flor de Pascua season runs from late October to Christmas. For the rest of the year, plants in Madrid mean other gift pots: a moth orchid, a succulent in glass or a cactus, each chosen less for the moment than for how long it lasts and how much water it asks for.
Flowering pots for Madrid: an orchid in a box, a pot or with sweets
The Flowering Plants section is built around the moth orchid, whose blooms last for two to three months once the plant is established, which is why a flowering pot is a gift meant to outlast an evening rather than mark one.
A potted phalaenopsis suits someone willing to keep it watered and repotted later; a boxed one, such as the 7 Orchids in a Box, is ready to hand straight over the moment the courier arrives. Chocolate Candies with Orchid sets a flower beside sweets rather than inside one container, a pairing rather than a description of what the pot holds.
Cut flowers and potted plants grown around the region pass through the Mercado de Floristas inside Mercamadrid before they reach a Madrid florist. In July, when Retiro averages 32.8°C by day, cocoa butter starts to soften at 34°C, so a box that includes chocolate is best kept out of direct sun until it is opened. A plant picked for its leaves rather than its flowers belongs among the plants grown for their leaves.
Retiro's weather station puts July at an average 32.8°C by day and 19.5°C by night, with the air near 39% humidity; October settles at 19.7/11.1°C, and December reaches 10.3/3.7°C with humidity closer to 75%. Those are street readings, and nothing is recorded about what a sitting room does to them, so take the figures as a guide to the window, not the whole flat.
Direct summer sun burns an orchid's leaves, so through July and August a moth orchid wants a bright spot out of midday light rather than a sill facing full south. A phalaenopsis sets a new flower spike once daytime temperatures drop below 27°C, and Madrid's milder autumn can bring a window seat close to that mark by October. Frost touches the city on roughly thirteen nights a year, reason enough to keep the pot off a balcony once December's damp cold arrives.
Cacti and florariums for dry summer air and a damper December
Madrid gets around 417mm of rain a year, and the air swings from a dry 39% in summer to a damp 75% in December. Succulents cope with both because they store water in fleshy leaves and stems, which is also why an open glass florarium suits them better than a sealed one built for jungle plants.
A spray bottle is enough for a florarium: a few drops over the stone rose and sedum in summer, fewer still once December's damp sets in. The stone rose, like other sempervivum, wants full sun and dry soil, so it earns a south-facing sill that would scorch a moth orchid. Anyone who prefers spines to petals will find them among the cacti, where watering asks for even less attention.
A plant chosen to flower starts best among the flowering plants, and a table or desk that only gets watered now and then suits the florariums.