### Stock bouquets in Phuket: a soft stalk in a warm climate The stalk is the whole story with this flower. It is thick but soft and full of sap, closer to a herb than to wood, and every practical thing we do with stock follows from that one fact. It bends under the weight of its own spike and does not straighten again. So a florist sets these stems inside the bunch, where the surrounding heads hold them upright, and never along the edge where nothing supports them. On the roads here that placement is doing real work, since a box on the hill climbs moves more than a box on a flat city street. The same softness spoils water fast. Submerged tissue goes pulpy, the cut frays, and a vase holding a few stems of stock clouds and smells within a day if it is left alone. Ten stems of it in one vase cloud the water faster still, which is why single variety bunches of stock are rare and why we mention the routine at the point of ordering rather than on the card. Orders start from 2200 THB, and payment goes by bank card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PromptPay, bank transfer or cash to the courier in baht. Delivery runs 9 AM to 10 PM. > "A vase that has gone cloudy overnight almost always has stock in it. That is not a fault in the flower, it is the day somebody skipped." > - JFLOO florist #### Keeping it fresh at 25 to 33 °C Warm water spoils sooner than cool water, and at 25 to 33 °C a vase that would have lasted two days somewhere temperate does not. The routine below is a day tighter than the one most cut flowers need. - Change the water every day and wash the vase out at the same time, since the film on the glass returns to fresh water within an hour. - Fill shallow, about a hand's depth, so less of the soft stalk sits submerged. - Re-cut with a sharp knife every couple of days, because an old cut seals itself with swollen pulp and stops drawing water. Strip the lower leaves generously as well. They are thicker than rose leaves, they rot sooner, and they put more of the organic matter that spoils the water into it than the cut end does. There is a quick way to tell what went wrong when a vase turns. Lift one stem out and look at the cut. A frayed pale end means the stalk has been standing too deep, while a firm clean cut under cloudy water means leaves went in below the surface. The remedy differs between the two, and checking takes a second. Keep the vase out of the sun and away from the air conditioning outlet. A spike drying from above while the water sours from below is the one combination that finishes this flower early. Given that routine a stock bouquet holds for about a week, flowering from the bottom of the spike upwards, with the lowest blooms dropping before the top ones open. #### On the road The west coast window is 90 to 180 minutes, with separate slots for villas, marinas and airport routes. Patong, Kata, Karon, Kamala, Bang Tao and Surin fall inside it; Rawai, Chalong, Mai Khao and Phuket Town are usually booked earlier in the day. During the rains from May to October and on the evening climbs we add route time, and for stock that means we pack the bunch tighter and keep the slot. Hotels take the delivery on site, so Rosewood Phuket, Trisara, The Slate Phuket, Banyan Tree Phuket and Veranda Resort Phuket all work the same way. Where the flowers are going to a room rather than a villa, say so on the order: housekeeping changes vase water on its own schedule, and we build accordingly.