Flower baskets in San Francisco: the flower, the colour and the cake beside it
Flower baskets in San Francisco can be sent with a bento cake, a small Korean-born cake in a takeaway box with a short message on the icing, or with Ferrero chocolates added to the same order. A basket comes with its own handle and stands without a vase, so choosing one comes down to three things: the flower, the colour and what goes in beside it.
One flower by the hundred, or a mix the florist designs
Choosing by flower settles the basket fastest, since the section splits first by what fills it rather than by colour or size.
The mono baskets count stems, not blooms: Ecuadorian roses by fifty-one or a hundred and one, red or white, with "201 French Red Roses" as the largest in the section. Ecuador supplies roughly a quarter of the cut flowers imported into the United States, and imports account for close to four-fifths of everything sold here, so a basket of Ecuadorian roses sits inside an ordinary supply line rather than a special order.
A basket built around lilies deserves a second thought where there is a cat in the house: every part of a lily is toxic to cats, so a different flower is the safer choice there.
Where the look matters more than any single flower, the designer and duo baskets leave the combination to the florist, who works from a photo example and sends a photo with the price before taking payment.
Red, white or soft pastels: matching the colour to the household
Colour settles the choice faster than flower type in a household that keeps older customs.
In the Chinese tradition held in Chinatown and in many Chinese-American families, white flowers and yellow chrysanthemums are tied to mourning rather than given as gifts. A basket of white roses, however striking on its own, is the wrong choice for that address; red or pink reads as a gift instead. Around Lunar New Year the same households lean further into red, and the city's flower calendar tracks that alongside the rest of the year.
Size is a separate decision from colour: a basket chosen by size still comes in whichever colour suits the recipient.
A cake or chocolates alongside: what to add and how long it waits
The Bento Cake "Happy Birthday" or Ferrero Chocolates (Small) can go into the same basket order, and a card with a short message costs nothing extra. The bento cake itself is a small Korean-born cake in its own takeaway box, with a short message on the icing.
A cream cake does not keep at room temperature for more than two hours, so it is worth putting somewhere cool soon after it arrives. The basket itself needs no such care: its stems sit in wet foam packed into the wicker, so there is nothing to fill before the flowers change hands.
Flower basket delivery in San Francisco works to order rather than from stock: the florist builds the basket after payment and photographs it before the courier leaves, and most orders are handed over on the day they are placed. The exact timing for a given basket shows on its own page, and delivery terms cover the rest.
Starting with the flower usually settles a basket fastest: baskets sorted by flower group the mono roses with the lily and daisy baskets in one list. Baskets picked by colour suit a Chinatown household, or anyone choosing red over white for another reason. For something to add alongside the flowers, gifts to go with the flowers covers more than the bento cake and chocolates described here.