These hand-tied bunches can be put straight into a vase without any fuss (iStock/The Independent)
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If you’re going to be apart from your nearest and dearest this Christmas, sending a beautiful bouquet is a thoughtful way to let them know how much you care. Then again, if you simply want to spread a bit of festive cheer in your own home ordering a dazzling floral display is just the ticket.
We’ve rounded up the best Christmas bouquets of the year, from traditional reds, greens and golds to paintbox brights that pop with colour. The arrangements we have chosen are all hand-tied – so you can put them straight into a vase without any fuss. However, many online florists offer letterbox flowers too.
Our choices range from well-known flower companies to smaller enterprises, all of whom kindly sent sample bouquets for us to review. We tested a variety of differently priced blooms, so whether you’re a buyer on a budget or you’ve got Christmas cash to splash there’s something for everyone.
The flowers are all available to order online, apart from the Waitrose bouquet, which will be in stores from mid-December. If you’re ordering flowers online please check for Christmas delivery dates and delivery charges; some companies throw in delivery while others charge on top.
How we tested
We chose from a vast assortment of festive blooms, judging them on their affordability, packaging, condition on arrival, ease of arrangement, longevity, festiveness and most important of all, how they looked.
The Real Flower Company David Austin Christmas bouquet
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Best: Overall
Rating: 10/10
Instead of reds and golds, how about choosing flowers that evoke the colours and scents of summer, even in the darkest days of winter? These are the prettiest Christmas blooms that we’ve seen. This exquisite bouquet looks and smells divine and features soft pink roses, seasonal flowers and freshly picked foliage, all from the company’s sustainable flower farm in Hampshire or its sister farm in Kenya. It’s available in six sizes, from a posy with six roses at £56 to a magnificent 35-rose bouquet at £190. David Austin has been breeding roses for more than half a century and The Real Flower Company is one of a select group of authorised David Austin cut-stem growers.
We couldn’t resist this elegant array of deep crimson carnations, wrapped in brown paper and tied with sumptuous black ribbon. Delivered in a stylish white box, the flowers looked the bee’s knees and were effortless to arrange. Flowerbx is an international online flower delivery service that sources flowers direct from growers and delivers them straight to your door. To keep flowers fresh for longer they recommend removing foliage below the waterline, cutting the stems at a 45in angle and using a clean vase with freshly-drawn lukewarm water. The advice worked a treat – our flowers lasted for more than two weeks. You can order 20 stems for £45, 40 stems for £60 and 60 stems for £75.
This chic Scandi-inspired Christmas bouquet put a smile on our faces the moment it was delivered to our front door. Packed in a jolly pink and green box with a “Hello Petal” greeting, the flowers arrived in bud and opened to their full glory within a couple of days. Beautifully arranged and featuring a mix of red carnations, red hypericum, white roses, white waxflower, white carnations, festive foliage and pinecones, the flowers smelled delicious. The bouquet is great value at £28.99 and as a seasonal bonus you can buy a Christmas light-up star with any order for £2.99.
Bloom & Wild deserves every ounce of its success. Even if you aren’t a flower arranging whizz, the company provides everything you need to make sure your bouquet looks tiptop from day one. Advice on how to care for your flowers, where to put them and two sachets of flower food (for days one and three) are all popped into the company’s distinctive, recyclable packaging.
Inspired by a cheery red robin, this bouquet features red roses, tulips, astibe, eryngium, hypericum berries and eucalyptus. Our sample blooms arrived looking fresh as a daisy (so to speak), artfully arranged and instantly ready to put on show. The icing on the cake was that they lasted for well over two weeks and, at time of writing, were still going.
Bloom flowers are the perfect choice for a Christmas party – the kind of luxurious arrangements that will get everyone talking. If you aren’t keen on reds and golds, this abundant creation of powder pink lisianthus, roses, pink bouvardia, delicate phlox and seasonal foliage is a real showstopper. It’s on the pricey side but celebrity florist Larry Walshe and his expert team have pulled out all the stops to make it a beauty. It arrived in top-notch condition in a classy box, with the 60 stems carefully packaged and tied in brown twine. Bloom prides itself on ensuring that all its packaging is sustainable and plastic-free too.
This festive mix of deep red, bright pink and cerise blooms will appeal to old and young alike – in other words, to traditionalists as well as fashionistas. Generously packed with 25 stems, including vibrant red roses, red astrantia, viburnum tinus and cerise bouvardia, all tied together with fresh eucalyptus leaves, laurel and kiefer pine, our sample bouquet looked ultra-glamorous. Thanks to the excellent packaging it arrived in first-class condition and was quick and easy to arrange. Reasonably priced and as jaunty as Father Christmas and his red-nosed reindeer, it’s “anything but ordinary”, as the new M&S slogan goes.
If you’re keen to use a local florist, then Interflora, the largest flower delivery network in the UK, could be the answer. Interflora’s designs are crafted by artisan florists up and down the country, using the freshest stems on the day so each arrangement is utterly unique. Our arrangement came from Bouquet Florist in Wareham, Dorset and featured red and cream roses, festive foliage and Christmas baubles, all finished off with a sumptuous crimson bow. The bouquet was guaranteed to stay fresh for seven days but ours lasted longer than that. We also liked Interflora’s eco-friendly boxes, recycled ribbon and biodegradable cellophane.
Fans of bright, celebratory colours will appreciate this Christmassy offering. The talented Bunches team has created a display of pink snapdragons, red roses, spray roses and lisianthus, mixed with warm copper ruscus and green bell, blue thistles and white waxflower – a gorgeous combination. The flowers arrived in bud so they lasted more than a week and we were impressed with the 100 per cent recyclable packaging. Bunches is a family business and since launching in 1989 it has donated more than 10 per cent of its profits to charitable projects in the UK and abroad.
This generous arrangement of 16 pale pink and apricot roses, orange holly berries, pinecones, attracted admiring glances galore. The flowers lasted for two weeks but after that we used the holly berries and pinecones on their own to create a separate display.
Sustainability is at the heart of the ethos of Arena Flowers, which also offers letterbox flowers and Christmas wreaths. All its blooms are sourced from ethical suppliers and Fairtrade-certified farms and for every bouquet or plant sold the company plants two trees in countries like Haiti, Mozambique and Madagascar, with the aim of restoring and growing forests and alleviating poverty.
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a floral display on the table and we felt festive the instant we set eyes on this classic bouquet. Available in Waitrose stores from December 16, this abundant confection of red and cream striped roses and red roses, along with seasonal foliage and eye-catching blue thistle, is good value and attracted loads of compliments (especially the striped roses which reminded us of classic candy canes). The flowers lasted for well over a week and we’ll definitely look out for those striped roses again. Available in-store only from mid-December.
