Best Flowers to Buy Online for Delivery

If you are trying to get something nice for someone that you value in your life as a gift or nice gesture, your thought probably immediately turns to flowers.

Flowers are one of the most common gifts out there–and for a good reason! They provide you with a thoughtful way to let someone know that you are thinking about them and also provide the recipient with something beautiful that they can display in their home and enjoy the natural scents for a few days at least. 

However, with so many types of flowers out there, it can be hard to settle on one type to get the person that you are thinking about. Should you get them roses? Carnations? Dahlias?

Buying flowers online is also a little different than buying flowers from a florist or a local market.

At a market or a brick and mortar shop, you can see how fresh the flowers look, whether they’re healthy and how open they are (and therefore, how long they might last).

Online, you don’t have the luxury of picking the exact blooms you want. Once you find an online florist you like, you’ll be able to trust that they’ll send flowers that look amazing and don’t fall apart in a day. Until then, it’s often a good idea to pick flowers that are born to be a little hardier and last a little longer than very delicate or finicky types.

But how do you choose?

We’re going to break down each of these types of flowers and what their benefits are so that you can decide which type of flowers is best for the next time that you send a bouquet.

Best Types of Flowers for Bouquets (Reviews)

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Roses

Roses are one of the more common types of flowers that people use for bouquets. They are the most classic type of cut flower, and they are typically used in a romantic context.

If you are looking for a good flower to get your spouse or significant other, then this is a good option for you. There are more than 100 million roses sold in the United States each year.

Roses aren’t a hard decision to make for your bouquet, but it can be harder to determine which type of rose you want to send.

There are more than 20,000 varieties of roses, making things a bit more complicated. However, if you are sending roses romantically, you probably don’t have to think too much about it. Most varieties of roses will work just fine for your purposes. 

Long-stem roses are the most popular type of roses to use in a bouquet because they are easier to work with. However, they also come in shorter stem varieties that make it easy to put them in other flower arrangements and even in flowers for weddings. 

If you are going to be buying roses, you should make sure that they get full sun exposure in the vase for the best results. In a vase, they will typically last 6 to 12 days. They don’t last very long, but they do look very beautiful when cared for correctly.

Love-in-a-Mist

These types of flowers are not nearly as well-known as roses, but they are very beautiful and offer a lot of benefits for the person in your life who loves cool and light colors.

These are annual flowers that bloom in shades of blue, pink, and white, giving you a lot of flexibility when choosing colors. They are not a traditional flower but are gaining more popularity because of their unique shape.

What really makes these flowers great for arrangements is the fact that the bloom is surrounded by a netting of ferns that are referred to as the “mist.” This gives them an extra element of décor and makes them perfect for flower arrangements because they offer something a little unique.

They also feature a large seed pod in the middle of the bloom, which can make for a valuable addition to your flower arrangement themselves. 

Love-in-a-Mist flowers are perfect for someone who values the unique and non-traditional. 

Love-in-a-Mist flowers thrive best in situations where they have full sun to partial shade. This means that part of the day they should be getting full sun and other parts of the day they should be at least partially shaded for the best results. They can last in a vase anywhere from 7 to 10 days, and they smell great.

Lilies

For another traditional option that is very common, lilies should give you what you need.

While any lily can be used in your flower arrangements or in a vase, it’s most common to use oriental lilies. This is because they give off a very pleasant fragrance that many people love to introduce into their home. In fact, a single bouquet of lilies can make an entire room smell much better and also brighten it up with their lovely appearance.

If you want to prolong the amount of time your lilies can stay in a vase and look good, you can choose sprays that have slightly-opened lower buds so that you can enjoy them longer. They will last longer in the vase this way and give you at least a couple of extra days. 

Lilies are great for someone who likes classic flowers that are almost always sure to please. 

One thing to keep in mind with lilies is that they feature stamens that droop down and can get pollen on anything that comes near them. This pollen is typically an orange or yellow color and can cause staining.

If you are going to use these in an arrangement, make sure that you remove the stamen to reduce the risk of this happening to you. 

Lilies require full sun for the best results and can typically last 7 to 14 days in a vase. They are beautiful flowers that have attractive blooms.

Lavender

Lavender is another one of the better-known flowers. Usually, lavender is used dry for things like scent sachets and other décor. However, it makes a wonderful cut flower as well and can be a valuable addition to almost any floral arrangement. The most common praise people give to this flower is the smell, as it’s very subtle and pleasant.

Lavender can be used in a flower arrangement to spruce things up or in a vase by itself to give a pleasant smell to any room.

If you are going to be using them by themselves in a vase, you should make sure not to put them in water if the smell is what you are going for. You can put them in a vase without water to prolong life. They will dry on their own, and as lavender dries, the smell intensifies. 

If you are going to display your lavender in water, make sure to remove any leaf that is kept below the waterline, or you will have to deal with a rotting smell instead of getting the pleasant scent of lavender. 

If you are going to display lavender in an arrangement or in your home, you should make sure that you give them full sun. In a vase, they can last up to 10 days when fresh cut. This gives you plenty of time to give your home a pleasant scent.

Heather

At one point or another, you may have confused this flower with lavender. That’s because it looks very similar to lavender and can also have the same purple color.

This type of flower is beautiful in its own right but is often used as filler in arrangements. That’s because the blooms are very small and most people feel they aren’t very suitable for a centerpiece. The flowers at the end of the long stems are either pink, purple, or white.

One big benefit to heather is that it has a very long life in the vase when it’s cut. It’s perfect to use in combination with other flowers that don’t go the distance because when those flowers fade, the person you’ve given the arrangement to will still have something lovely to look at. 

If you are going to be using heather in your arrangements or on display in your home, you should know that it needs a mix between full sun and partial shade. This puts it in the best position to succeed.

Heather can last a long time under these conditions in a vase. They can last up to 1 to 2 weeks if cared for properly.

Gladiolus

This is one of the most popular summer flowers that people use in arrangements and in a vase on display in their home. They are very tall flowers, which makes them versatile and interesting. They can grow up to 6 feet and feature spiky stalks below them which add even more intrigue to their appearance.

While these are very temperamental flowers that you should keep a close eye on, they are very beautiful and are being more commonly used in arrangements as appreciation for them grows.

These flowers require that you keep them in full sun for best results. They are very thirsty when cut, so make sure that you keep an eye on the water level. They will run out very quickly. If you have closed buds that you want to be opened, you can use warm water in the vase and cover the buds with a plastic bag. 

You should also keep in mind that they are very sensitive to fluoride in the water. If you are going to be giving these flowers water that contains fluoride, make sure that you let the water sit for several hours before you do. These flowers can typically last from 7 to 10 days in a vase.

Delphinium

This is probably one of the best flowers out there if you are aiming for adding as much blue and purple into your arrangements as possible. They also come in white and pink but are beloved for the intriguing shades of blue that they add to almost any arrangement.

One of the drawbacks of these flowers is that they can sometimes be difficult to grow because they are very picky about their environment. Most of the time, these flowers succeed best in a cool, moist summer.

If you live in an area with too much heat and humidity, they will not reach maturity and will fade away with the heat. 

Though these flowers are a bit picky on various things, they still are one of the best options for an arrangement that wants to show off blue and purple colors. 

There are various things to keep in mind when growing and keeping delphinium flowers. The first thing to know is that they can be difficult to grow because they don’t like heat and humidity.

If you can manage to grow them, make sure to cut the flower stalk as soon as they bloom. This will encourage the plant to bloom again so that you can harvest it over and over. 

These flowers are also sensitive to ethylene gas. That means that you should not keep them cool in the refrigerator, as you might do with some other flowers. They need full sun and last in the vase from 7 to 14 days.

Carnation

Carnations are perhaps the most popular option when it comes to bouquets and flower arrangements. This is for several reasons, but mostly it’s because they look great, are affordable, and last a long time in their vase.

If you have ever ordered vase flowers before, the chances are that it contained some carnations.

The other benefit of carnations is that they are easy to grow from seed. They are the first flower that many people choose to grow because of how easy they are to succeed with. If you are a beginner florist who wants to grow their own flowers to use in arrangements, carnations would be the ideal option.

Aside from the practicality of carnations, they also smell great. Carnations often come in white, pink, and red, but they are coming out with new varieties every day that increase the versatility and color range of carnations.

These flowers can grow well into the fall, rounding them out as perhaps the best type of cut flower for arrangements and display. 

Carnations need full sun and can last 7 to 21 days in the sun. They are easy to grow from seed and can be grown into the fall for fresh cut flowers.

Feature image: Emily Fletke; Image 1: David Bartus; Image 2: Arie Wubben; Image 3: Luiza Sayfullina; Image 4: re novatio; Image 5: ekrem osmanoglu