Buying Seasonal Flowers: Why It's Worth It — And What to Watch For
Seasonal flowers are fresher, cheaper and ecologically better. But ‘seasonal' doesn't mean the same everywhere.
‘Seasonal' is one of the most common words in floristry marketing — and one of the vaguest. Here we explain what we mean by it and how to spot a truly in-season flower in the shop.
Three meanings of ‘seasonal': (1) Field-grown locally during the natural bloom period. (2) Greenhouse-grown but in the typical seasonal form. (3) Imported from abroad but traditionally sold at this time of year. We use it mostly in the first sense.
Why seasonal is better: shorter supply chain = fewer days between cut and vase = more vase life. A Dutch tulip cut in May is on our shelves 2 days later. An imported tulip in February has been in transit for 5–7 days.
Ecologically it's more nuanced. Local field flowers nearly always have the best carbon footprint. Heated Dutch greenhouses in winter often score worse than Kenyan field flowers flown in — Cranfield Institute studies show this clearly.
In the shop, spot seasonal freshness by: firm closed buds (not already half-open), strong green stems without brown spots, firm stem at the cut (not soft or spongy).
Our recommendation: when buying, always ask where the flowers come from. If the florist doesn't know, that's a bad sign. At Fleura we can name the auction clock and the grower for every variety.