Flowers in the Post: What Survives the Journey and What to Send Instead

Flowers in the post usually means a letterbox bouquet: stems cut while still in tight bud, packed dry or with a water pouch into a slim box and sent through the ordinary postal network, so they arrive one to three days later and open at the recipient's home. It works well for hardy flowers and short domestic routes, but it does not work across borders, and it never gives the same first impression as a finished bouquet handed over by a courier.

As florists we get asked about posted flowers mostly by people living abroad who want to surprise a mother, a friend or a partner in Russia. Below we explain how postal flowers are prepared, which varieties cope with a few days in a box, how to bring them back to life, and what to do instead when the person you love lives in another country.

How flowers travel in the post

A posted bouquet is built around the limits of a postbox. The box is usually only a few centimetres deep, so the stems are laid flat, wrapped in tissue or a sleeve, and the heads are protected with paper collars. The flowers are cut at an early stage, when the buds are just showing colour, because a closed bud breathes less, loses less water and bruises less when the parcel is thrown into a sorting bag.

Hydration is handled in one of two ways. Some senders wrap the stem ends in wet cotton or a sealed gel pouch; others ship the stems completely dry and rely on the flower's own reserves, the way growers ship roses from the farm. Dry shipping sounds alarming, but a well-conditioned rose or carnation can go several days without water and recover in a few hours once it is back in a vase.

What the box cannot protect against is temperature. A parcel can sit in an unheated van in January or in a hot depot in July, and both extremes shorten vase life. That is why serious senders avoid dispatching on a Friday: a weekend in a warehouse is the most common reason posted flowers arrive tired.

Which flowers cope with a few days in a box

Some flowers are natural travellers. Carnations and spray carnations are almost indestructible and will open from bud even after three days in transit. Alstroemeria is another favourite: each stem carries several flowers, and new ones keep opening for up to two weeks. Chrysanthemums, statice, eucalyptus and most dried or preserved stems are equally tolerant.

Roses survive the post if they are cut at the right stage and kept cool, but the outer guard petals often look bruised on arrival. That is normal: growers leave those petals on precisely to protect the head, and you simply peel off one or two. Tulips keep growing after cutting, so they arrive curved and straighten again in cold water within a day.

The flowers that rarely survive a postal journey are the ones with soft, thin petals or a lot of open surface: hydrangea, peonies in full bloom, sweet peas, gerberas with heavy heads and most tropical flowers. Cut orchids are a special case, and we looked at them separately in Cut Orchids by Post: Do They Survive and What Works Better. If your heart is set on one of these delicate varieties, a bouquet delivered by hand is the safer choice.

Bouquets we can deliver

Bouquet of 1 yellow sunflowers

$13

Bouquet of 3 white French roses with eucalyptus, 50 cm

$18

Bouquet of 3 red French roses with eucalyptus, 50 cm

$18

Bouquet of 3 pink roses with eucalyptus, 50 cm

$18

Unboxing posted flowers: the first hour matters

If you are the one receiving flowers in the post, open the box as soon as it arrives and do not leave the stems lying in the wrapping until evening. Remove the packaging, the cotton or gel at the stem ends and any rubber bands, and strip every leaf that would sit below the water line.

Cut two to three centimetres off each stem at a sharp angle with a clean knife or secateurs, ideally under running water so that no air bubble blocks the stem. Put the flowers into a clean vase with cool water and the sachet of flower food if one came in the box. Then leave them somewhere cool and out of direct sun for a few hours: this is when dry-shipped stems drink and lift their heads.

Drooping roses can often be rescued completely. Wrap the heads in newspaper so that the stems are held straight, recut them and stand the bundle in deep cold water for two to three hours. After that, change the water every two days and trim the stems a little each time, and a posted bouquet should give you a week or more.

Why you cannot post flowers to another country

This is where most international senders get stuck. Fresh cut flowers are plant material, and almost every country controls their import with phytosanitary rules designed to keep out pests and plant diseases. A private parcel with a bunch of roses inside will usually be stopped at customs, held for inspection or destroyed, and even when it slips through, an international postal route takes far longer than any flower can survive in a box.

Distance alone is a problem too. A parcel from Europe or the United States to a Russian city can spend a week or more on the way, and in winter the temperature in transit can drop well below freezing. No packaging trick keeps a bouquet fresh through that.

So if the recipient is in Russia, the practical answer is not to post flowers but to order them to be delivered there. The bouquet is made and handed over inside the country, so it arrives fresh, on the day you choose, and you pay online from wherever you are.

Sending flowers to Russia without the post

With Turboflora you order online and we deliver flowers across Russia. Delivery within the city costs 500 RUB; for remote districts and suburbs the operator confirms the price when confirming your order, so there are no surprises. You can pay on the site by bank card, SBP or Yandex Pay. Start by choosing a bouquet in our Bouquets catalogue.

Timing is far more flexible than with any postal service. In large cities we can deliver within one to two hours after the order is confirmed. If you want the flowers to arrive at a particular moment, you can choose an exact time (plus or minus 30 minutes) or one of the windows 09-12, 12-15, 15-18 or 18-21, and you can pre-order from one to thirty days ahead, which is useful for birthdays and anniversaries.

The courier calls the recipient about 15 minutes before arriving. If nobody is at home, we agree a second delivery the same day or, with your consent, leave the flowers with a neighbour or the concierge. All the details are collected on the Delivery and payment page.

Keeping the surprise and the personal touch

One thing people love about flowers in the post is the feeling of a parcel opened at home. A hand delivery can be just as personal. Delivery is anonymous by default, so the courier does not name the sender unless you want them to, and a card with your own text comes free with every order. Write it the way you would write on a postcard: one or two warm sentences, signed the way the recipient knows you.

If you are unsure which bouquet suits the occasion, or you want to agree the time, the address or the wording of the card, message our manager on WhatsApp. On request you will receive a photo of the bouquet before it leaves, so you see exactly what your mother or friend is about to receive, even from the other side of the world.