Flowers in Toronto

Flowers in Toronto: where they're grown and how to choose for delivery

Ontario grows about half of Canada's floriculture sales, yet in the greenhouses of Niagara only around five per cent of the area is set aside for cut flowers. Flowers in Toronto usually travel a long road before they reach a door, and that journey shapes how fresh a bouquet is, what it costs in a given month, and which format suits the address.

Where Toronto's cut flowers are grown

Most of the roses sold in Toronto arrive from Colombia and Ecuador, since Niagara's greenhouses are given over largely to flowering plants for pots rather than stems for cutting. Ecuadorian farms sit at around 2,800 to 3,000 metres in the Andes, where the day holds close to twelve hours year-round and the steady light keeps stems straight and the heads large.

The flowers travel the distance at close to two degrees, and every hour spent warm afterwards comes off the time they will later hold in a vase. Near Pearson, in Mississauga, the Ontario Flower Growers Co-operative has run a daily wholesale auction since 1972, when 63 growers founded it. More than 150 growers supply it today, and the market gives a sense of how much of Ontario's own crop passes through the city before it reaches a shop.

At JFLOO the flowers for an order are bought only after payment clears, and the florist photographs the finished bouquet before the courier sets off, so the sender sees exactly what will be delivered.

Roses stay in the catalogue every month of the year, since Colombia and Ecuador cut them on a schedule the Canadian winter cannot touch. French roses are not a separate variety: a florist turns the outer petals of an ordinary rose back by hand to open the head into a fuller shape.

Peonies follow the calendar closely. Europe cuts them from late April into June, farms in the north-eastern United States a little later, from late May into early June, and in the months either side of that window the stems fly in from further away and cost more. Dutch tulips run from December to May, while lilies, gerberas and lisianthus are available year-round, which makes mono bouquets of a single flower a safe choice when the date matters more than the variety.

Toronto Flower Market, at 1001 Queen St W, has sold only Ontario-grown flowers since 2013, and its season runs from May to October. The dates worth planning a delivery around are:

• 14 February — Valentine's Day
• Mother's Day — the second Sunday in May, the busiest flower day of the year; deliveries are best ordered for the Friday or Saturday before
• Thanksgiving — the second Monday in October, with the date shifting each year

Bouquet, box or armful: matching flowers to a Toronto address

A hand-tied bouquet wrapped in paper works best for a face-to-face handover, when the recipient has a vase within reach at home. Where the recipient is at a hotel, in a condominium or at an office, and the bouquet may sit for hours before anyone collects it, flowers in boxes travel better: the stems sit in soaked floral foam and keep drinking until someone carries them upstairs.

Hotels such as the Four Seasons in Yorkville, or the St. Regis and the Ritz-Carlton near Bay Street in the Financial District, need the surname the guest checked in under and, where known, the room number; the hotel then decides whether the box goes up or waits at reception. An office needs the company name and the floor, and where a pass controls the lobby the box is left with reception instead.

A hospital is worth calling ahead about, since not every ward accepts fresh flowers; if the answer is no, the handover moves to the nurses' station or to the day the patient is discharged. Where the flowers are meant for a room rather than one person, armfuls fill a table or a hall without needing a container at all.

Flower prices vary with the format and the time of year rather than sitting at one fixed amount. Roses and mono bouquets sit at the lower end of the range, while flowers in boxes, mixed bouquets and peonies cost more because of the container and the foam that comes with them. Armfuls, designer bouquets and designer giants climb further as the arrangement grows, and a flower subscription is priced per delivery rather than as a single purchase.

What moves the price is not the flower alone. A longer stem from Ecuador costs more than a shorter one, a peony bought in May is cheaper than the same peony flown in for November, and prices climb again around Valentine's Day and Mother's Day when demand peaks. A box or a basket also carries the cost of the container and the foam on top of the stems themselves.

Current prices sit in the grid above, in the currency the storefront shows. The site can also show these totals in other currencies through its switcher, but that display is only for reference; the amount actually charged is the total in the cart, bouquet, extras and delivery together, with no surcharge added for the courier.

Flower delivery in Toronto: zones, timing and the handover

Toronto's delivery map splits into zones, and the rate depends on which one the address sits in:

• City centre — free
• Kensington Market and Chinatown, Queen West and Liberty Village, the Distillery District and Corktown, Little Italy and Dufferin Grove — a paid flat rate, shown in the cart
• North York — a paid flat rate, shown in the cart
• Overnight — by arrangement, at a rate quoted separately

The bouquet card shows the delivery time for each option, and a chosen date and time slot can be booked for any zone; the fee covers one address rather than one bouquet. A delivery to Pearson is arranged on request, and the courier waits at arrivals holding a sign with the recipient's name. Nobody calls ahead to warn the recipient, the courier waits up to fifteen minutes at the door, and most orders go out the same day they are placed. Zones and rates are confirmed on the delivery page.

Sending flowers to Toronto from another country

Orders are taken around the clock, on the website, on Telegram and on WhatsApp, and no account or registration is needed, just a name and a phone number for the recipient. If the sender does not know the exact address, the recipient's phone number is enough to arrange the handover.

Payment is by Visa or Mastercard; a bank abroad converts the charge at its own rate, and the service adds no fee on top. The date, the address and the card message can still be changed up to six hours before delivery. The network covers 113 cities in 59 countries, so the same process works whichever city the sender is ordering from.

Keeping a bouquet fresh through a Toronto winter

Toronto gets around 115 to 120 centimetres of snow over a winter, and January afternoons sit close to zero. The short stretch from a door to a car and back is enough to chill a bouquet if it waits outside rather than being handed straight in. Indoor heating dries the air further, and that shortens a flower's life almost as fast as the cold does:

• change the water daily, since dry heated air clouds it faster than usual
• keep the vase away from a radiator or any heating vent
• in July, when Toronto afternoons run around 27°C, keep flowers away from direct sun and an air conditioner's draught
• recut each stem at an angle before it goes back in water
• top up the foam in a box or basket daily, over the whole surface, not just the middle
• if a hydrangea wilts, soak the whole head in cool water for an hour rather than just the stem

Lilies are worth avoiding in a household with a cat, since the flower is toxic to them.