Flower baskets in Miami: who they suit, which flower, how large
A South Florida funeral home reminds senders that Jewish funerals and shiva take no flowers at all: food, a note of condolence or a donation stands in for them, and where a family writes "in lieu of flowers", that wish is respected. Flower baskets in Miami start, then, with a simple question: who the basket is for, and whether flowers are expected there in the first place. Once that's settled, the choice comes down to the flower, the colour and the scale, and a basket needs no vase waiting at the other end.
Roses off the MIA flights or lilies in any month: picking the flower
Roses for the larger baskets are flown into Miami International Airport, which handles ninety-one per cent of the flowers imported into the United States by air. One format built on that scale is 101 White Ecuadorian Roses in a Basket.
Lilies, by contrast, are a greenhouse flower cut all year round, so a lily basket is never out of season and suits a date fixed months ahead.
A lily is also worth checking against before it goes into a home with a cat. The whole plant is toxic to cats, pollen and vase water included, and where that risk is real, roses or daisies make the safer basket.
Lily pollen also stains fabric, so a florist removes the anthers once the bloom has opened. That detail matters most when a basket is heading for a pale counter or a tablecloth, rather than a plain hallway table.
A modest daisy basket or 201 red roses: matching colour and scale
Scale in Miami runs from a modest daisy basket up to 201 French Red Roses, with the stem count marking the steps in between at fifty-one and a hundred and one. Red is the city's loudest colour around the fourteenth of February: between fifty and sixty per cent of the roses flown into Miami for the holiday that month are red, which keeps red the safe choice for the date.
White suits a quieter visit. Condolences sent to a family at home are better carried by a small or medium basket than by a large one, since the bigger stands and wreaths belong at the funeral itself rather than the house. Where a family is sitting shiva, or has written "in lieu of flowers", a basket isn't the right gift, whatever its colour or size.
No vase needed: wet foam keeps a Miami basket going
A basket stands ready on its own, built around a liner and a block of wet foam, so no vase is needed at the other end. Water goes in daily as a thin stream across the whole visible surface rather than poured into one spot, with the basket never tipped to do it.
The arrangement ages as one piece, and the shortest-lived flower in it decides how long the whole basket lasts. Heat and air conditioning do the rest of the damage in a Miami flat, so a basket left in a parked car or on a sunny sill fades fastest; flowers in Miami covers the climate and the calendar together.
A basket is handed over by its handle, in person. A photo goes out before the courier leaves, and delivery zones and handover covers the rest.
Flower baskets in Miami are easiest to start with baskets picked by flower, baskets sorted by colour or baskets by size, and where one flower is all that's wanted, roses are the simplest route in.