### Gold bouquets in Phuket: the care that differs from a normal bouquet A coated arrangement asks for a few small habits, and none of them is difficult. Skipping them is what turns a good bouquet into a disappointing one by the third day. Never mist it, and keep it away from a humidifier. Moisture streaks a painted film and clumps loose glitter into grey lumps that cannot be brushed out afterwards. Change the water on the usual schedule, and wipe any stem carrying paint below the waterline before you do, since that paint flakes and clouds the water. Choose where the vase stands once and leave it there. Every move of an arrangement carrying dry glitter starts a new patch of it on a new surface, and a coated head loses a little of its finish to the paper each time it is rewrapped. Stand the vase on a tray or a folded napkin for the first week. Loose glitter lifts with a soft dry brush, while a damp cloth simply spreads it across the surface and into the grain of the wood. Handle the heads as little as possible. Every touch takes a little of the finish onto a thumb, and it does not come back. A living petal does not repair itself either, but nobody expects a rose to lose its colour to a fingertip, which is why this one surprises people. Cut the stems over a bin rather than a sink. Flakes of paint come away as the blade goes through, and they float rather than sink, which makes them awkward to get out of a drain. None of this applies to gilded components. Painted leaves and dried branches carry no water, shed nothing and need no tray, which makes them the version to choose when nobody will be looking after the arrangement day to day. > "The tray under the vase is the advice people ignore and then thank us for. Glitter travels further across a table than anyone expects." > JFLOO florist #### What that means here Humidity is the local complication. At 25 to 33 °C with the moisture that comes with it, a coated arrangement is better placed indoors than on an open terrace, and away from the side of the room that stays open through the evening. From May to October the rains add another reason to keep the box shut until the handover. We build extra route time into the run in that season and on the hill roads after dark, and the closed box does more for a coated bouquet than for anything else we carry. Rooms make the difference visible quickly. An air conditioned suite is kind to a coated bouquet, a shaded outdoor table much less so, and after three days the same arrangement in those two places looks a week apart. The west coast, from Patong and Kata to Kamala, Surin and Bang Tao, runs 90 to 180 minutes, with villas, marinas and airport arrivals quoted on separate windows. We work 9 AM to 10 PM. Imported roses and Thai orchids usually carry the finish, while gilded leaves and dried branches go in when the living flowers should be left untouched. Orders start at 2200 THB, and payment goes by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PromptPay, bank transfer or cash in baht. If the arrangement is going to a hotel room or a restaurant table rather than to a home, ask for gilded components instead of sprayed heads. Nobody working a counter wants to brush glitter off it every morning, and the living stems keep their scent, which in a closed air conditioned room is worth more than the extra shine on the petal edge.