Every year, after the major flower-giving holidays, readers send us photos of what they ordered and what they actually received. It’s a dismaying scene, and what we really want is to never publish another of these features again. That’s why we’re sharing what we’ve learned about the flower business from readers and from florists in the 10 years that Consumerist has been around. [More]
garden of discontent
Valentine’s Day Aftermath: Floral Disaster And Floral Delight
By 2.17.15
Valentine’s Day isn’t the biggest flower-sending holiday on the calendar. That would be Mothers’ Day. It remains an important flower-giving holiday, though, and one during which florists need to obtain massive quantities of red roses. Here’s one flower delivery that went terribly wrong, and one that turned out beautifully. [More]
Florist Wire Services Try To Sort Out Frozen Flowers Disaster Via Twitter
By 2.16.15
Earlier today, we highlighted the feat of globalization that brings millions of red roses to our doorsteps on one specific date. Unfortunately, mid-February this year is a time of bitterly cold temperatures in much of the country. Cool temperatures preserve cut flowers, but cold temperatures can destroy cut flowers and kill live plants. That’s why this Valentine’s Day hasn’t been so great for the national flower-delivery brands. [More]
How To Amaze Your Valentine Without Screwing Over Your Local Florist
By 2.9.15
Shopping online is simple: you see a picture of the thing that you want to buy, click on it, type in your credit card, and then that thing arrives on your doorstep or the doorstep of your gift recipient. This simplicity falls apart when it comes to ordering flowers online, which leads to plenty of disappointment. Here’s how to avoid that. [More]
1800Flowers Sends Grandma Small, Non-Seasonal Christmas Bouquet
By 1.15.15
Reader Philip likes to send people flowers, and that includes his grandmother. He used the 1800Flowers.com website to send her a very festive arrangement for Christmas, and she was pleased enough to post it on Facebook. Philip wasn’t pleased, though. What he saw online wasn’t what he had paid for. He tried to get 1800Flowers to explain what went wrong. They gave him a refund, but no explanation. [More]
Bad Transcription Means 1-800-Flowers Card Implies Dead Grandma Had Diarrhea
By 9.30.14 — Updated: 2.14.17
Douglas, a reader of the New York Times’ “Haggler” column, decided to send flowers with a lighthearted message to his grandmother’s funeral instead of attending. He sent them through 1-800-Flowers, dictating his message for the card to the customer service representative who took his order over the phone: “FAR WELL GRANDMY YOU HAD A GOOD RUNS.” Wait, that doesn’t sound right. [More]
Do You Have Questions Only A Florist Can Answer?
By 6.9.14
A few weeks ago, we shared with you some insider tips from a former florist who explained that the real arrangements we receive look meager compared to website photos because the arrangements in photos are designed for two-dimensional photographs. We wondered whether our readers had other questions about the flower business that she could answer, and she has agreed to answer your questions. [More]
Here’s Why Florists’ Websites And Reality Will Never Match Up
By 5.16.14
A common consumer complaint about flower deliveries is that the arrangements that show up on our loved ones’ doorsteps isn’t as tall or full as the pictures we saw of the arrangement online. A former florist wrote to Consumerist to explain why this is. The photos from FTD, Teleflora, and other Big Flower companies are staged to look nice for the camera, but real-life is three-dimensional. [More]
Mom Gets Lots Of Carnations And Ferns, Not The Arrangement I Ordered
By 5.14.14
Don’t let the huge photo below fool you: the flowers that Jason sent to his mom for Mothers’ Day were much smaller than they were supposed to be. He paid extra for a huge arrangement, and what showed up wasn’t what he saw on the website. Is everything really smaller in real life than on catalog pages, or did the florist short Jason’s mom some blooms? [More]
Florists Suffer Apparent Shortage Of Purple Blooms This Mother’s Day
By 5.13.14
Michelle placed her Mother’s Day order from a site that appears to be a fake local florist, aggregating orders and sending them to local shops affiliated with wire services after taking their cut. She didn’t know that, though, and chose an arrangement based on her mom’s love of purple roses. Got that? Purple. [More]
Teleflora On Mother’s Day: Eh, This Is Close Enough
By 5.13.14
Ordering flowers to be delivered for the major flower-sending holidays, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, is always taking a risk. When florists are doing such high volume, you run the risk of getting flowers that aren’t exactly what is pictured on the website, or that aren’t perfectly fresh. As long as they aren’t dead, that’s okay, right? What if they substitute in another color when the arrangement’s color is the entire point? [More]
In National Florist Tournament, FTD’s Tiny Bouquets Win Slightly
By 5.8.14
We post pictures of floral horrors and call them the Garden of Discontent, but our petal-pushing colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports took a more scientific approach to the question of which flowers are best in advance of Mother’s Day. They ordered their own flowers, then evaluated what showed up. Which bouquet was good enough for even the finest mothers? [More]
1800Flowers Keeps Delivering Dead Flowers To Grandma
By 5.6.14
Mother’s Day, one of our nation’s major flower-sending holidays, is coming soon. We don’t want to shame the industry over a whole new bouquet of crappy flower deliveries, but it’s inevitable every year. This May, we’re kicking off the festivities early with 1800Flowers, which is seemingly unable to send Lucy’s mom any tulips that aren’t dead. [More]
This Basket Of Flowers Is Okay, But Not What I Ordered
By 4.22.14
Someone Cathy is close to is in the hospital with a shattered femur, which sounds extremely unpleasant. To cheer this person up, cathy sent some flowers through FTD. The flowers are pretty enough, but Cathy doesn’t think they’re what she ordered. [More]
ProFlowers Reaches Out Before I Complain About Missed Valentine’s Day Delivery
By 2.19.14 — Updated: 2.14.17
We’ve criticized ProFlowers a lot over the years, even dedicating an entire post to the company’s screwups last Valentine’s Day and inflicting the classic Margaret Saga on the world. It’s only fair that we give the company credit when they do well, though, and this year they captured at least one customer’s heart by apologizing before customers spent an hour on hold or tweeted the company. [More]
We Don’t Want To Hear About Your Disappointing Flowers This Valentine’s Day
By 1.14.14
Well, Consumerist readers, the time is near. There’s a month to go until Valentine’s Day, and we have a goal. We do not want to publish any disappointing wire service flower photos on Tuesday, February 18. None. Zero. Because everyone reading this right now who plans to order flowers will proceed to the friendliest, best-reviewed local florist they can find and order directly. [More]
Does The Garden Of Discontent Still Bloom In The Off-Season?
By 9.3.13
Daniel ordered what’s called a “country bundle” from 1-800-Flowers for his girlfriend. When we have flowers delivered, we’re not buying dead plant stems. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be such a large industry built around flower delivery. What we’re buying is the experience of dazzling our partner when they see the flowers. Daniel’s girlfriend received this arrangement, but she wasn’t dazzled. Should she have been? [More]
This Year’s Mother’s Day Garden of Discontent Is Wonderfully Small
By 5.13.13
A few weeks ago, we asked our readers not to send us any Mother’s Day floral disasters. That’s because you weren’t going to have any floral disasters. Reader R. really did her best: she located a florist near her mom’s home, placed her order directly with them, and even discussed it with the shop. She was still disappointed with the end result––though her mom probably loved it, because that’s how moms are. [More]
