Freshness & care

Flowers are flowers, before they are a gift Buying flowers to gift is a lovely thing to do. But please understand: they are living, perishable things first, and a present second. Two minutes of care on arrival is the difference between days of joy and a sad box.

Gifts that happen to be alive

We know most of our bouquets are gifts, and what a lovely thing to give. But flowers are flowers before they are a gift. Think of gifting fresh fruit: leave it boxed for a day or two and the freshness is compromised. It is no different with flowers, except that with flowers it happens much faster. Even five or six hours in the box has an effect.

So please do not leave the bouquet boxed because it is not ready to be gifted yet, or because you want the recipient to open it exactly as it arrived. Doing that compromises the very thing you are gifting. Unbox it, care for it, and gift it thriving.

PENELOPES Liquid Gold

Made for the journey, not for the shelf

Your stems travel in PENELOPES Liquid Gold, our transport gel. It is designed to feed the flowers for exactly the delivery journey plus a few hours more, and no longer. Left too long, the gel can block the stems. That is why our care instructions are specific to us: they are written for flowers that have travelled in our gel.

What to do when they arrive

1. Scan before you open. Find the big FreshProof QR sticker on the box and scan it with your phone camera before you open anything. It takes seconds and links straight to your order.
2. Unbox straight away. Your flowers have travelled and they are hungry for fresh water. The box is for the journey, never for storing or gifting.
3. Spot something wrong? Photograph it. Photograph each affected stem on its own, then all of them together, and finish the FreshProof report. It comes straight to us, linked to your order, so we can decide quickly.
4. Trim, water, follow the care card. Trim the stems at an angle, get them into fresh water, and follow the care instructions in the FreshProof flow. They are written for our flowers and our travel gel.
5. Tell us within 24 hours. Anything not right needs to reach us within 24 hours of delivery, with photos taken on arrival. After that we cannot know how the flowers have been stored, so it becomes very hard for us to help.

Care and the 24 hour window

Within 24 hours of delivery we can still see what the journey did, and we can fix it fast. After that, nobody can tell how the flowers have been stored, watered or kept, which is why we cannot consider wilting or damage reported later, and why flowers that were not cared for after delivery are not something we can replace. Follow the care card and report anything early, and we will always look at it properly, decide quickly, and fix genuine problems fast, usually the same day.

Talk to us first

Email us at info@penelopesflowers.co.uk. Whatever the question, we would rather hear it early and sort it together.