Date Night in Melbourne

Date night in Melbourne: flowers to bring and flowers to have delivered

Date night in Melbourne flowers stretch from eleven lavender spray roses to a giant basket of fifty-one lilies, and that range is where the choice begins. Decide who is bringing the flowers to the table before you decide on colour, because size and format follow from that first choice.

Flowers for a date: a small bunch to carry or a basket to send

The small formats are built to be carried. Eleven lavender spray roses, fifteen dianthus or thirteen mixed alstroemeria sit comfortably in one hand and take up no room on a chair or under a table.

A basket or a box works the other way round. Twenty-five mixed roses in a box or fifty-one lilies in a basket are meant to travel to an address, not to a coat pocket, and they arrive already standing rather than needing a vase on arrival.

Lilies change the sums a little, because each flower opens into a large head. A handful of stems already reads as a full bouquet, which is worth knowing before you order lilies by the dozen.

Lily pollen is worth a second thought too: it stains fabric and is hard to lift once it sets in. Snipping the anthers once a flower has opened stops most of it, and pollen that has already landed on cloth comes off with sticky tape rather than rubbing. If the person you're seeing keeps a cat at home, lilies are best left off the list, since every part of the plant is toxic to cats.

Colour carries some old assumptions worth knowing, if not following too strictly. Victorian flower dictionaries read a red rose as passion, a pink one as something gentler, white as purity and yellow as friendship, though no single dictionary set the rules and the meanings shift from one book to the next.

Peony-style roses are usually English varieties bred in the style popularised by David Austin, with a dense, layered head rather than the classic pointed rose shape. In this range that means the Peony Lavender Roses and the Duo of Peony Roses and Peonies.

Peonies are best bought at what florists call the marshmallow stage: the bud already shows its colour but still gives gently under a finger. From there it opens over roughly a day or two, which means it reaches full bloom after the date itself, at home in a vase. The peonies section keeps that stage in mind when it cuts stock.

Jumilia is the less familiar name on the list: a bud up to seven centimetres across, white at the base and edged in pink, sold here as 51 Jumilia in Airy Wrapping.

Flower delivery to a restaurant, timed for dessert

A restaurant delivery is arranged around the meal rather than the clock. The timing is agreed with the restaurant's manager in advance, so the bouquet is brought out for dessert or for a toast instead of waiting on a side table through the starters.

Getting the flowers to arrive at an exact minute is a separate arrangement, made directly with the manager and for a small extra charge, since it depends on someone at the restaurant being free to bring the bouquet out on cue.

Before the courier sets off, a photo of the finished bouquet is sent over, and any changes can still be made at that point. The card that goes with it is free and can be signed or left blank; the courier knows only the recipient's name and the address, nothing about who sent it or why. Something sweet can travel in the same basket as the flowers. The exact timing for any bouquet shows on its own page, alongside the delivery details.

Once the format is settled, the roses section covers most of the colours discussed here in one place, and flower baskets are the simplest way to send something that needs no vase at the other end. For something to go alongside the bouquet, there's also something sweet to go with the bouquet.