Looking for the perfect flowers for the one you love? Perhaps there’s some colourful blooms you should rather avoid when gifting flowers to your date, friend, or acquaintance.

    Which are the best? The worst? What’s for a friend? Here’s a guide to help you out!

    “Sometimes, a bouquet of flowers is filled with more than just well wishes. Historically, different flowers have symbolized different messages for various cultures, from romance to jealousy to grief. Now that it’s spring and all those flowers are beginning to bloom around us, make sure you know what you’re telling people when you bring them a bundle of blossoms.” Stated Lily Tidhar in her Infographic ‘What Do Those Flowers You Bought Really Mean?’

    When giving flowers to others, you want to be meaningful; random flowers can send mixed messages!

    For example, Lilies represent “the innocence of a soul that has left the body”, and is often used at funerals. A mimosa, on the other hand, represents friendship. It would be quite strange to hand lilies and mimosas to your date at a ball, and could do more than just fling them off into the friendzone.

    Or what if you give someone Delphiniums and Peonies- and that special someone looks to find out what your gift’s message was. They might find that Delphiniums mean boldness, and Peonies mean bashfulness/shyness. It probably just wouldn’t make sense, unless you’ve got some complicated emotions there.

So how do you do it right?

    Don’t go to a florist looking for the most beautiful flowers, discovering “the one”- only to find yourself looking up “Pink flower with a yellow part in the middle” and scouring the web until you find it- then repeating this process over and over again with each flower until it works out.

    Always. Research. First.

Construct a list of meaningful blossoms and then go to a florist. Find those you have chosen and pick from them to create a colourful bouquet.

    As for colours, perhaps try to go for soft, analogous colours like blue and purple or a light red and yellow, or bold complementary colours like orange and a deep blue, or burgundy-red to harmonize with the green stems. There are endless possibilities! Take a look at some colour harmonies online to get some ideas.
Go ahead! Tell them how you feel!