Thanksgiving in San Francisco

Thanksgiving in San Francisco: cream roses, sunflowers and tulips for the table

Thanksgiving in San Francisco falls on the fourth Thursday of November, built around a family table, and the grid here holds five cream-rose bouquets running from fifteen stems to a hundred and one, next to a sunflower bouquet called "Cloud" and fifteen yellow tulips. Choosing between them comes down to where the bouquet will stand and how long it needs to last.

Cream roses, sunflowers and tulips: what the Thanksgiving grid holds

Cream roses come in five sizes here, from fifteen stems to a hundred and one, so the colour stays the same while the scale of the gesture changes. A bouquet built from shades of one colour is what florists call a monochrome scheme, and cream is the shade this section leans on most.

Beside the roses sit White Roses with Coffee Wrapping, Coffee Cylinder No. 1 and the bouquet "Peach Tenderness", each named for what it looks like rather than described stem by stem.

Sunflowers are large-headed, so a handful of stems already reads as a full bouquet; that's why the sunflower bouquet "Cloud" doesn't need to be big to hold its place on the table. Jumilia, sold here as 51 Jumilia in Airy Wrapping, carries a bud up to seven centimetres across, white at the base and pink along the edge.

Every bouquet in the grid is put together to order, once the order is placed.

A rose usually holds for about a week, sometimes closer to ten days. Jumilia, kept well, can last up to two weeks, longer than most of what sits beside it in the grid.

Tulips keep growing after they're cut, by a centimetre or two a day, and they lean towards the light, so a bunch of yellow tulips can change shape within a day or two of being set out. They like cold water, a vase filled to about a third, and a quarter-turn once a day so the stems don't all bend the same way.

A few habits keep any of these on the table longer:

• cut the stems at an angle before they go into water
• strip off any leaf that would sit below the waterline
• change the water every day or two
• keep the vase away from radiators, direct sun and ripe fruit, which gives off ethylene as it ripens

Thanksgiving flowers delivery for a set day and several homes

Orders for a set date and time are taken for any delivery zone, and the earlier one is placed, the more time slots are still open.

One order can carry several bouquets going to different homes, and delivery is priced separately for each address. Where there's no address to give, the recipient's phone number is enough to arrange the handover.

A photo of the finished bouquet goes out before the courier leaves, and that's the moment to ask for any change to it. A card with a message comes free with the order, signed or left anonymous, and a separate gift can be added in the basket.

How soon a bouquet can arrive is shown on its own page; the full picture sits on the delivery page. Payment is by card, and the total shown in the basket is what gets charged.

Choosing what to send starts with the table it's going to: roses in every colour and count for a monochrome look, mono bouquets of a single flower for a simpler centrepiece, and gifts to go with the bouquet to round out the order.