What the 19th-century Austrian poet and playwright neglected to
mention is that, for all its power, love sure is a hell of a lot
of work. Especially this time of year, when sending Valentine
flowers can be a colossal chore. Doing it on-line streamlines
the process, but what do you get? We tested 12 Internet
florists, for price, quality of the flowers, and usability of
the site. To keep it fair, we aimed to spend no more than $65
and ordered virtually the same product — a dozen or more red
roses — from each florist. All the flowers were sent to the same
location, where every last rose was duly prodded, poked,
sniffed, and photographed. (The good news: All arrived on time.)
Quality ranged from magnificently fresh to Dumpster-ready. Some
sites send flowers from local florists, so quality depended on
the quality of the florists in our area. Prices varied greatly,
and so did the sites — some were easy to use, others bewildering.
The following ratings (four A's, three B's, four C's, and one D)
are based on what the flowers looked like the day they arrived
and how easy it was to order them.
www.ftd.com $68 for 12 (A)
We were pleased with the flowers we ordered from FTD.com — a
Blooming Masterpiece bouquet for $65 (plus a $7 service charge
and local tax) and the FTD Delightful Dozen for $68 (same
service charge and tax; shown above). But it's important to note
that FTD merely acts as a middleman for local florists
nationwide (as is the case with the flowers discussed in the
sidebar Ordering Arrangements, page 59). That means, in our
case, that an expert New York City florist procured our flowers
and hand delivered them. If the FTD-affiliated florist in your
area isn't as masterful as New York's Macres 57th Street, your
flowers might not look as good as the blazingly fresh roses we
received. Then again, the FTD, com site is so well designed, and
the FTD network so well managed, that we suspect you'll be
pleased, too
www.1800flowers.com $70 for 24 (A-)
Thanks to once omnipresent TV ads and a heavily hyped initial
public offering of its stock, 1-800-flowers.com is sort of the
poster child for on-line florists. Using its simple menu, we
found everything from the Love's First Bloom Bouquet ($60) to
two dozen long-stemmed roses ($70). The latter were $5 more than
we wanted to spend, but since 1-800-flowers.com didn't offer a
mere dozen (keep in mind that product offerings at any online
site will change from time to time), we sprang for the $70, plus
$12 for FedEx shipping. (On another visit on a later day, we
found a dozen roses for $50.) The Ecuadoran flowers, which
arrived in a sturdy Styrofoam-lined box shipped from a Miami
warehouse, were bright and healthy — and the best of the tested
flowers that came from warehouses or growers — but perhaps not as
perfect as you might procure from an A-list florist. The flowers
came in two 12-rose bunches.
www.freshroses.com $46 for 24 (A-)
This was the plainest site we visited. You could argue that it
has a certain no-frills charm, but that would be charitable,
because really it's just ugly. But it also happens to be the
only online florist that responded to our request for no baby's
breath. (There was a Special Instructions box on the order
page.) Freshroses.com is the Web presence of a flower farm with
two California locations. "We are a progressive company," the
site says, "always looking for ways to treat our customers,
employees, and land with respect." Aww, heck — that's awfully
nice. But even nicer is the fact that you can get a dozen roses
for just $30, plus $8 for FedEx shipping. We anted up $46 for
two dozen flowers (shipping was still just $8). The flowers that
arrived were just lovely — bright, healthy medium-size flowers,
with some ferns and small purplish flowers as a garnish.
Freshroses.com even threw in a free plastic vase. We
felt...respected.
www.flowerclub.com $55 for 12 (A-)
Like FTD.com, Flower Club uses a network of local florists, so
the lovely arrangement of big, bright red flowers with white
daisies that we received wasn't necessarily representative of
the flowers you might get in your area. For $55 we got a dozen
flowers delivered by hand (in a flimsy white cardboard box).
This site — whose slogan is "Send something special" — is quick
loading and logically organized, but there's only one thing
special about it: You get frequent-flier miles (we scored 500 US
Airways Dividend miles) with an order — perfect for those of us
who like our generosity garnished with a little greed.
www.hallmark.com $50 for 12 (B)
Click on the "Flowers" button on Hallmark's well-designed site
and you'll be taken to the Hallmark World Flower Market,
complete with a Fresh Today listing of bouquets as well as a
Limited Time Offer section, where we found a dozen Cayambe roses
from Ecuador for $50, plus $9 for FedEx shipping. We were given
the option of personalizing a Hallmark card. We chose the "Love"
card, which has a moody shot of a red rose on the cover and is
blank inside; we asked that it be inscribed "To John, with love
from R.S." The flowers were decent but not spectacularly
fresh — a bit haggard looking, in fact. But our $50 also included
a glass vase, and the card was hand-written (no others were).
The Hallmark box was the slickest packaging presentation, but we
disagreed with the card that claimed "these fresh-cut flowers
are the finest that anyone could have sent." Hardly.
www.redenvelope.com $60 for 24 (B)
RedEnvelope is mostly known for its tony, tasteful selection of
gift items, but it was easy enough to find red roses by typing in
"roses" in the Search field. For $60, plus $16 for overnight
shipping, we got two dozen classic red roses from California,
shipped, curiously enough, from RedEnvelope's Wilmington, Ohio,
warehouse. Despite the pit stop on the way to our photographer's
Manhattan studio, the flowers were reasonably fresh. Although the
leaves were a little droopy and the red of the petals was a bit
dull, the buds still looked lively. And though there was no
special-instructions box on the order page of RedEnvelope's
elegantly designed site, there was no baby's breath mixed in with
our flowers. A respectable showing by an on-line merchant that
sells mostly non-floral items.
www.pcflowers.com $43 for 12 (C+)
The clinically named PC Flowers & Gifts ships roses from Miami,
with a 2200 NW 70th Avenue return address. Calyx & Corolla (see
next review) ships from the same address, but there was no
indication on either site that they're affiliated or share the
same warehouse. One apparent difference: The PC Flowers site was
easier to navigate, and the flowers arrived in a plain white
box. Oh yeah, and they were cheaper. We got a "Buy One Dozen
Roses Get One Dozen Roses Free!" special (we photographed only
one dozen) for just $43, and FedEx shipping, which arrived hours
before the Calyx & Corolla bunch, was just $10. The flowers were
in the same basically good condition as those from Calyx &
Corolla.
www.calyxandcorolla.com $69 for 12 (C)
Calyx & Corolla — "the Flower Lover's Flower Company" — has an
elegant catalog (call 888-88-CALYX for a free copy), but its
website can be maddening. Unless you have the catalog in front
of you, it takes some doing to find what you're looking for.
There was no easy-to-use toolbar, and when we typed "rose" into
the Search box, we got 22 results, the first five of which
included "Antique Rose Wreath" and, oddly enough, "Enchantment
Lilies," but no plain old roses. Further down the list, we did
find a dozen long-stemmed roses for $69, plus $14 for FedEx
delivery. The Colombian flowers shipped from Miami arrived in
good condition in a tasteful brown box that contained ice
packs — the flowers were still chilled when they arrived at 3
P.M. A few leaves were noticeably wilted, and one bud had broken
off its stem, but overall we were pleased.
www.flowerbud.com $64 for 50+ (C-)
This site, the creation of Mark and Alice Hayes, proprietors of
Heron Bulb Farms outside of Portland, Oregon, is big on casual
good cheer. For some unknown reason, the "Meet Mark & Alice"
page shows a sepia-toned shot of Alice's penny loafers and
Mark's work boots. Perhaps they've high-tailed it to the bedroom
to celebrate a hard day's work in the flower fields? "Think of
the people at Flowerbud.com as friendly neighbors with an
enormous flower garden who like to share," the site insists. The
25-stem Table Top Roses option ($49) was sold out, so we
selected the $64 Spray Roses arrangement (mighty kind of them to
include shipping in that price), which consists of "10 stems per
bunch with an excess of 50 flowers." The flowers came packed in
an attractive sage green box, which included a pretty envelope
containing our message and care instructions. Though a few
flower heads came off in transit, the flowers were healthy and
fresh.
www.marthasflowers.com $62 for 35 (C-)
We love Martha Stewart — we really, really do — but her flowers
disappointed. Though MarthasFlowers.com has one of the most
tastefully designed sites on the Net, the flowers we received
looked almost war torn. We ordered the $62 (plus $15.50 for
FedEx) 35-stem rose and spray-rose mix, which was jam-packed in
an attractive box. The buds were in various stages of opening
but were almost universally browning around the edges. The
miniature roses in the mix were in such bad shape that John, our
photographer, remarked that "the leaves look like cooked
spinach." Given how closely packed the flowers were, it's not
surprising that a few of the stems were broken and some buds had
snapped off.
www.proflowers.com $45 for 25 (D)
Proflowers claims that "we ship DIRECT FROM THE GROWER so you
can send the FRESHEST flowers money can buy — GUARANTEED fresh
for 7 days!" The site was easy to navigate, if somewhat slow
loading, and the price was reasonable: $45 for 25 "Flowers in
the Rough," plus $8 for FedEx shipping. Despite the seven-day
guarantee, the Ecuadoran roses that arrived in a bright purple
silk-screened box hardly looked as if they possessed the
fortitude to last 24 hours. And the shipment came with a
care-instructions flyer that seemed more warehouse chic (think
Home Depot) than heartwarming. Though the flowers arrived before
11 A.M. from San Diego, they were frayed around the petal edges,
and when we removed them from their purple box (a coffin?), some
of the flowers fell apart, leaving a few stems beheaded and
forlorn.
ordering arrangements Unlike the boxed long-stemmed roses we ordered (see main text),
which are generally shipped from central warehouses controlled
by the on-line florists, arrangements in glass vases are usually
too delicate to be shipped by FedEx (one exception:
Hallmark.com, discussed in main text). This means most flower
arrangements ordered online are processed at a given online
florist's headquarters but produced by a florist in your area.
So, like love itself, buying arrangements on-line involves a
leap of faith. And sometimes, it's worth noting, taking that
leap of faith pays off: We received a perfectly lovely
arrangement of 18 red roses (though we only ordered and paid for
a dozen — $64, plus $8 for delivery) from a New York City florist
commissioned by JustFlowers.com.
But the arrangement we ordered from 1-800-flowers.com was garish
and, well, tacky. The only things missing from the $60 Love's
First Bloom Bouquet were a pinwheel and a Beanie Baby — and maybe
a corn dog on a stick. It definitely looked better in the photo
on-line, but perhaps we should have been forewarned by the
site's treacly prose: "Speak the universal language of love and
send a rainbow of joy with this truly beautiful bouquet of one
dozen multicolored roses." The description went on to say, "Our
florist selects twelve of the finest long-stemmed roses and
skillfully arranges them with wildflower accents." But there's
no predicting exactly how a florist in your town would have
interpreted the JustFlowers order. Arrangements will be as
gloriously good — or embarrassingly bad — as the local florist
entrusted by the on-line florist to do the legwork.
www.justflowers.com $64 for 12
1-800-FLOWERS.COM $60 for 12
rose care Roses, like romantic feelings, are fragile and need some tending
to if you want them to last. When they arrive, fill a sink with
lukewarm water, submerge the stems, and, using a sharp knife,
cut an inch off each stem under water. Avoid scissors, which can
crush stems, making it impossible for the flowers to absorb more
water. Bacteria from dying leaves taints water, so remove all
leaves below the waterline. Add a flower extender, such as
Floralife, and change the water every two days to keep bacteria
at bay. Finally, keep cut roses out of direct sunlight and in as
cool a spot as possible. If you're not home during the day, keep
them in the refrigerator (but not the freezer). It works for
florists.
