EASTER in Porto

Easter flowers: carried into a house where nobody has a free hand

Most bouquets for this holiday are not delivered to an empty flat. They are bought in the morning, driven across town on a back seat and handed over at a door that opens onto a kitchen already running at full speed.

Then they wait, still wrapped, until the meal is over.

That wait decides how the gift ends up looking. A host with the oven on will not stop to cut stems and fill a vase, so the wrapping stays on for two or three hours, the paper holds the heat of the car around the heads and the water at the base of the stems runs out. By the time anyone gets round to it, the tulips have gone soft at the neck and the greenery has curled. Nobody blames the florist for this, and nobody remembers the bouquet either.

The format that survives the handover

An arrangement in a basket or on floral foam removes the whole problem, because the water travels with it. It goes straight onto a table or a windowsill and needs nothing from the person who received it.

Height matters as much as the water does. Easter is eaten sitting down, across a table, and a tall bouquet cuts the room in half, so anything low and wide keeps the conversation intact.

If the gift really has to be a bouquet, keep the wrap loose and open at the top. Sealed cellophane over spring stems turns into a warm damp pocket within the hour.

Spring stems and their habits

The season is generous and slightly awkward. Tulips, hyacinths, narcissi, ranunculus and the first garden foliage are all in good supply and cost less than winter stock, but each of them behaves in a way that catches people out.

Narcissi leak a sap from the fresh cut that shortens the life of everything sharing their water. Give them a few hours alone in a jug before they join anything else.

Tulips keep growing after cutting and bend towards the light, so a flat, even dome will lean by the evening. Turn the vase daily. This is normal growth rather than a fault in the build.

Hyacinth and lily carry a heavy scent, which competes badly with a table full of food.

Colour against a busy table

Painted eggs, patterned plates and a bright cloth already supply most of the colour in the room. A mixed bouquet in the same register disappears into it, so a narrow palette does more: white with green, soft yellow, pale blue, one clear accent rather than five.

Red is the shade that most often misfires here. Next to dyed eggs it stops reading as a flower and becomes a patch of colour on the table.

Ordering ahead of the rush

The date moves every year, which is why so many orders arrive two days late in people's plans. Demand then compresses into a short window, and what runs out first is not flowers in general but the low arrangements, which are the ones worth having.

A morning slot works better than an afternoon one. Deliveries in Porto that land after midday tend to reach a house already full of guests, where the door takes a while to open and the gift joins a pile in the hall.