Seventeen roses: the vase question, answered before you order
Most bouquets fail at home rather than in transit. The flowers arrive in good condition, the recipient looks around the kitchen, and the only container tall enough turns out to be a jug with a neck built for three tulips.
At this count the problem is small enough to solve in advance.
What the neck has to do
A gathered bunch of seventeen stems is about as thick as a wrist where the ribbon sits. That is the measurement that matters, not the height of the vase and not its shape at the top. Below the tie the stems splay outwards, so the neck has to let them spread rather than clamp them into a column. A neck that is too tight squeezes the outer stems against the glass, the dome tilts, and by the second morning one side of it has dropped.
Glass cylinders sold as standard household vases usually take this bunch without argument. Narrow decanters and bud vases do not.
Depth matters more than height
Roses drink from the cut, not through the leaves, so the useful measure is how much water stands above the cut end. Half a vase is a working level for this many stems. A handspan of water at the bottom looks tidy and runs dry overnight, at which point the stems seal themselves and stop drinking altogether.
Anything below the waterline has to come off first. Leaves left underwater soften within a day, cloud the water and coat the cut with bacteria, and after that the buds open slowly and the petal edges brown at the rim.
Ceramic against glass
Clear glass shows you the water, which is the point of it. You see the moment it goes cloudy, and cloudy water is the single best warning that the bouquet needs attention.
Opaque ceramic hides that, and in exchange gives weight and a lower centre of gravity. On a narrow hall console or a desk edge, where a sleeve catches the vase twice a day, that trade is worth making.
There is a third option people forget. A wide low bowl with the stems cut short turns the same seventeen roses into a table arrangement that nobody has to look over during dinner.
If there is no vase at all
Then order the flowers in a hat box with floral foam. The stems arrive already sitting in water, the box goes straight onto a table, and the first hour costs nobody any effort.
The compromise is length of life. Foam holds a limited amount of water, it needs topping up daily, and trimming the stems inside a box is awkward, so the same count usually lasts longer standing in a vase.
For a delivery to an office the box wins outright, because no colleague ends up hunting for a jug in the kitchen. For a home address the plainer answer is better: ask whether there is a vase, and if the recipient in Nice has just moved or lives alone, send a glass cylinder with the order.
Cut roses last one to two weeks, and the vase decides more of that than the variety does. Change the water every day or two, wash the vase rather than topping it up, and recut the stems at an angle with a sharp knife each time. None of this takes longer than washing a pan.
