### Gerbera bouquets: what to look at before you accept the box The weak point of this flower is structural, and no amount of freshness cures it. A heavy head sits on a soft hollow stem, and once the neck loses pressure it folds just below the bloom and never recovers. Good assemblies allow for that in advance, with a wire run inside the stem or a clear sleeve slipped over the neck. You are entitled to look for it before you accept the bouquet. It is normal practice, not a repair. Worth a look on the doorstep: no kink or dark crease under any head, and a stem that is firm along its whole length. If there is wire or a sleeve, it should sit straight and not bulge through the side. > "Nobody minds the wire once they know what it is for. The complaints come from people who pulled it out on the first evening because it looked untidy." > JFLOO florist Leave the support in place at home. It holds the head for exactly as long as the flower lives, and taking it out is the quickest way to lose a bouquet that still had a week in it. The stems are naked by nature, so a bunch padded with foliage is usually hiding uneven head heights. Ask for the heads to be set at slightly different levels instead, which gives depth without a single leaf. #### What a long drive does to a neck Bali is not one delivery zone. Seminyak, Canggu and Sanur take 90 to 150 minutes, while Uluwatu, Tabanan and the villas further out take up to 3 to 4 hours, and every extra hour is another hour of a heavy head resting on a soft stem. Heads therefore travel fixed. They cannot knock against each other in the box, and the flat disc holds its shape through a drive better than an open peony would. Above 30 °C, and in the humidity that comes with it, we use firm wrapping and a cooling element. We work 9 AM to 10 PM. Gates are the other variable. On the villa roads a courier waits while somebody is found, and a box standing in the sun against a wall costs a gerbera more than the drive that brought it there. A phone number for whoever will actually take the delivery saves more time than any choice of route. Gerbera bouquets in Bali go out most often to villa dinners and to Nusa Dua hotels, where the box is taken in at reception and carried up to the room. Ubud is the long run, and that is the one where packing gets checked twice before the van leaves. #### The vase at the other end A narrow, tall neck suits them, because the stems lean on each other and on the glass. Wide low vases, which is what most rented villas own, let the stems drift apart, and the first head to fall drags its neighbours down with it. If that is all there is in the house, bunch the stems together and tie them at the neck of the vase. Water should be barely a finger deep and changed rather than topped up, because the fuzzy stem rots along whatever length stands in it. Colour is the other decision worth making early. A narrow palette beats a wide one here: two neighbouring tones plus white look deliberate where five strong colours look accidental, and dyed blue heads give themselves away along the petal edge. Orders start from 650000 IDR, with payment through QRIS, GoPay, OVO, DANA or cash to the courier. Tell us the vase at the address and whether anyone there will look after the flowers daily. If the answer to the second is no, we will say so and offer something that forgives a missed day, because a gerbera does not forgive one.