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Flower baskets in New Jersey: Andean roses and year-round lilies
Ecuador supplies about a quarter of the cut flowers the US imports, and Colombia sends more than 60% of them, yet the biggest flower baskets in New Jersey are counted in Ecuadorian roses: 51 or 101 stems, the hundred also available in white. Start the choice with the flower itself, roses or lilies, before narrowing it down by colour and size.
Why the biggest New Jersey basket is counted in Andean roses
Almost four-fifths of the cut flowers sold across the US are imported, and within that import stream Colombia supplies more than half, Ecuador around a quarter. New Jersey baskets include Ecuadorian roses in 51- and 101-stem formats.
Ecuador owes its roses to geography: the plantations sit in the Andes at roughly 2,800 to 3,000 metres, and so close to the equator that daylight holds near 12 hours the whole year round. The combination gives the longest stems in the trade, anywhere from 70 centimetres to a metre and more, which is why a basket meant to be seen from across a room is built on Ecuadorian stock.
Within that one flower, the choice comes down to stem count and colour. A basket named 101 Ecuadorian Roses in a Basket suits an occasion big enough to need a hundred stems; the same count in white, sold as 101 White Ecuadorian Roses in a Basket, reads quieter and suits a gentler occasion. A fifty-one-stem basket sits between the two in scale without needing a name of its own.
Colour carries old associations rather than fixed rules. Victorian flower dictionaries read a red rose as passion and a white one as purity, but no two dictionaries agreed on every flower, and New Jersey buyers are not bound by either. It is simpler to pick a basket by colour and let the shade carry whatever meaning the occasion calls for.
Lily baskets for any month, and for homes without a cat
New Jersey's own fields have a short season: peonies run from late May into early June, and the rose display at Colonial Park peaks in the first days of June. Outside those few weeks, a basket is built from flowers grown elsewhere or under glass, roses included.
Lilies are a greenhouse flower and are cut somewhere in the world every month of the year, which is what makes a lily basket work for a birthday in January as readily as for a June wedding. A fifty-one-stem lily basket, or a larger mixed basket that includes lilies among other flowers, fits any date on the calendar precisely because the flower itself never goes out of season.
One household detail matters more than the calendar. Every part of a lily, pollen and vase water included, is toxic to cats, so a home with a cat is better served by a basket built on roses instead. New Jersey's winters bring their own weather questions, covered along with hospitals, offices, airport pickups and orders placed from abroad on the flowers in New Jersey page.
Flower basket delivery in New Jersey, carried in by the handle
A basket travels with its own handle and needs no vase: the stems sit in wet foam that holds its own water supply. The foam is watered daily across its whole exposed surface with a thin, even stream, and the basket is never tilted once it is filled, or the water runs straight out.
Flower basket delivery in New Jersey keeps the rest of the process just as plain. The florist photographs the finished basket before the courier leaves, a card is written in free of charge, and a bento cake or a box of Ferrero chocolates can be added to the same order. Most orders reach the recipient the same day they are placed; the exact timing for a given basket shows on its own page, and the zones are set out on the delivery terms and zones page.
With the flower decided, size and colour are the easier questions, and the baskets sorted by flower page or the baskets by size page is the quickest way into either. A bento cake or Ferrero chocolates from the gifts to go with bouquets selection rounds the order out.