I love cut fresh flowers. Who doesn’t? I love having lots of them, in different rooms, around the house.
The issue, for me, is sourcing them. When I lived in San Francisco, I frequented the Flower Mart. Now, however I am stuck with the grocery store option – Chapel Hill’s The Fresh Market has a decent, albeit limited selection. If you want to wait until the weekend and get out of the house early you can find more interesting flowers at a Farmer’s Market. I don’t know about everyone else, but I have a hard time rushing out of the house on Saturday mornings. I always enjoy being at the Farmer’s Market; I don’t enjoy the process of getting there.
This past week UPS left a box at my door step. It was an unanticipated surprise from my sister, sister-in-law, and nephew. A ‘Congratulations on the launch of Kuel Life’ box chock-full of farmer’s choice flowers and a big, glass mason jar vase arrived mid-day. When I say chock-full, I mean there were enough flowers for four different vases. Luckily, I have a ton of vases to choose from.
If you’re like me and enjoy the act of flower arrangement, this was a wonderful surprise. I got to express my creative side and ended up with flower arrangements at my front entrance, main eating table, powder room, and bedroom to show for it.
It got me thinking…
Do I have to launch a new business every month or have some other super exciting landmark occur to receive and enjoy fresh flowers in my home?
I dug the marketing materials out of the box and popped on the website; The Bouqs Company.
How did I not know about a home delivery subscription model? I may be late to the party – but at least I got here. I started poking around…. It seems that the subscription model had been redefining the world of flower delivery service, for a while now.
The Bouqs Company is one of a handful of services available. As I dug a little deeper, I found it featured on Oprah’s 50 Things That Will Make You Say “Wow! Coming in at 43:
A Simple, Gorgeous Bouquet That Lasts Longer. The Bouqs offers 40 elegant, minimalist arrangements, with nary a sprig of baby’s breath in sight, for a flat rate of $40, including shipping to anywhere in the United States. Because they’re sent straight from sustainable Equadorian farms, where they’re grown in sun-drenched, mineral-rich volcanic soil, the flowers arrive just four days after being cut (versus six to 14 for many florist-bought arrangements).
The Washington Post reported back in 2012 that H.Bloom, a New York-based subscription service founded in 2010, was providing Sofitel in Northwest Washington with a dozen flower arrangements, two times a week. Nice $10,000 a month budget. My budget? Somewhere an order of magnitude south of that…. way south. If I find flowers I like, I may spend up towards $50 to $60 – this gets me enough flowers to ‘fill the house’ – so to speak.
After digging around a bit, I decided to go ahead and subscribe to Bouqs. My first delivery is scheduled for early March. The total? $56 a month. Free shipping. I chose to go with Bouqs as they were a ‘known’ entity – as in I have their flowers all over the house right now.
There do seem to be other services worth considering. Forbes named Bloomsybox in their The 2017 Business Gift Guide: Something for Every Professional on your List InStyle’s Feb 2017 article, 5 Super Easy Ways to Sent Valentine’s Day Flowers shouts out for Flower Muse as an option that lets you customize your own arrangement of fresh cut flowers from one of the world’s best rose farms in Ecuador.
However you choose to do it – you may be lucky enough to have flowers blooming in your own yard that you can fresh cut yourself, I recommend adding flowers to your home environment. Allergies withstanding… I guess there are some of us out there that can’t be around flowers. For me, it was a moment of delight when I opened my first Bouqs box and I anticipate a smile on March 7th when my first subscription order arrives. The addition of fresh cut flowers; the colors, the aromas, and the textures really do make my home come alive.
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