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Bestselling Roses
About the range above
Roses, and which one suits your moment
You have scrolled past two dozen roses and you are still not sure. Most people bounce on category pages like this one. The rest of this page tries to earn a few more minutes. I'm Siobhan. I co-run Lily's Florist with my husband Andrew, and we have been watching rose orders come through since 2009.
Roses are the flower people overthink the most. A single red rose for an apology can misfire. Send twelve red to a friend's birthday and her partner asks her who they are from. Twelve pink with lilies will do a week of work that a dozen red won't, for half the social risk. The grid above shows what we make. The rest of this page is Anna and me explaining which one suits your moment.
What most people don't know about commercial roses
Anna, Qualified Florist, 10,000+ inbound calls on the Pottsville phones
Here is what most florists don't tell rose customers.
When a rose hits the wholesale market (Flemington in Sydney, Epping in Melbourne, Rocklea in Brisbane), it has been through a cold chain that started on a farm in Kenya or Ecuador three to five days earlier. The first thing I check is the sepals. Those are the green leafy bits underneath the petals. On a tight bud, they grip the bloom and point upward. On a rose that's ready to open properly, they have reflexed back past ninety degrees. That reflex is the maturity marker. Buds with sepals still gripping look fresher in the product photo but often lack the stored sugar to bloom. They sit closed for three days, then the outer petals brown without the inner petals ever opening. A good florist rejects those at market. A rushed one takes them and hopes.
Then there is the colour problem. "Red" is not one colour. Commercial reds come in three main varieties. Red Naomi is warm and velvety. Freedom is cooler, almost blue-red. Explorer falls between them. A florist stocks whichever variety their wholesaler has that week. All three photograph as the same red rose but in the hand they look like different flowers. If you order red expecting one specific shade, you will notice.
One more thing worth knowing. Red roses fade faster than any other colour under direct UV. A west-facing windowsill in afternoon sun will shift a deep red to dusky pink within 48 hours. Pastels do the same. Tell the recipient to put them somewhere with ambient light. Not direct sun.
Which rose for which moment
The grid above is sorted by price. This section is sorted by occasion. Four scenarios, plus the "just pick something" answer at the end. Anna's advice lives inside each card because the florist logic changes between occasions. A romance rose is not the same decision as a sympathy rose.
Red roses, the universal gesture, with caveats
Red roses are the default for a reason, and the default too many people overthink. Most of the calls we get on Valentine's week, anniversaries, and apology orders start with "I was just going to do red roses." Usually it's the right instinct. The question is the count, and the count is where people either get it right or send the wrong signal. Browse the romance range for the full spread.
One rose is harder to get right than six. A single red rose has nowhere to hide. In a dozen, one slightly smaller head or a stem with a minor blemish disappears into the crowd. When there is only one, that rose IS the product. The florist picks the straightest, tallest stem with the cleanest foliage. Six reds in a glass vase is the midweek "I love you." Twelve is the Valentine's move. Customers who order six are often in established relationships. Early romance goes for twelve because twelve feels safer. Someone five years in sends six because they know it will land.
When red roses are the wrong answer
Red roses don't work for everything. That is the bit that catches people. Send red to say sorry after an argument and the recipient reads it as pressure, not apology. Send red to a female friend's birthday and her partner asks her who they are from. Red roses mean one thing clearly, and that one thing is romantic. Everything else benefits from a different colour. The I'm sorry range leans on pink and coral for exactly this reason.
Pink roses with lilies are the workhorse for this problem. Hot pink reads as "I'm thinking of you and I have taste" without the Hallmark-card loading of red. The lilies do extra work on fragrance and scale, which means the arrangement feels considered rather than default. For a daughter ordering for mum, a colleague ordering for someone unwell, or a partner who wants to dodge the default, pink-and-white mixes are the right answer every time.
Same-day delivery on weekday orders placed before 2pm.
Browse bestsellersPink, pastel, and the middle-ground roses
There is a specific moment when someone wants to send roses but knows red will not do. Mother's birthday fits this. So does a thank-you to the neighbour who got you through a rough week, or a thinking-of-you gesture where romance would overshoot. Pastels are the answer, and most people do not realise they are the answer until they see them in a photo. Browse pink flowers for the wider range.
Why the pastels land
A good pastel rose bunch isn't one shade of pink. Our Pastel Roses Bunch runs three tonal groups together. The dominant stems are a mid-pink classic hybrid tea. Around those sit lighter roses a shade or two paler, with a couple on the outer edge carrying a stronger coral-pink that's almost salmon. That tonal graduation stops the bunch reading as a single block of colour. It gives the eye somewhere to travel. Most customers don't consciously register this but they feel it when it's absent. A bunch of pink roses at one flat shade looks cheap. Three shades working together looks like a florist paid attention.
Can you send roses to a funeral or a grieving home?
Yes, but the choices narrow. White, cream, and very soft pink all work. Bright reds and hot pinks read wrong in that context. The roses should feel quiet, not celebratory. The sympathy roses range pulls these together.
Stem count matters less here than colour and presentation. For home sympathy delivery, a mixed bunch with white roses, cream lilies, and soft greenery does more work than a dozen red roses ever would. For funerals, the rose often goes into a larger sheaf or wreath rather than standing alone. If you are sending to the home in the week after the service, pink and pastel mixes (our Pastel Pink Lilies and Roses Arrangement works well) are usually better than all-white. All-white can feel clinical in a domestic setting. Pastels feel tender. For the broader sympathy range, wreaths and sheaves sit alongside bunches.
A short card message lands better than a long one. "Thinking of you and your family" or "With love from all of us" are enough.
Not sure? Pick Florists Choice and let us work it out
Still unsure? Florists Choice 12 Roses at $120.95 is the default answer. You give us the occasion in the card message. We pick the colour and the supporting stems based on what the florist has at their best that day. It is what to order when you want roses and do not want to commit to a specific type. Most of our "please make it nice" callers end up here.
A quick word on looking after them once they arrive
Four things make roses last. None of them are complicated.
Re-cut the stems on arrival if you can. Not mandatory but helpful. Thirty seconds with kitchen scissors at a diagonal angle opens up fresh xylem and water moves again. If they arrive already in a vase (our three-rose and six-rose vase arrangements), skip this step.
Change the water every two to three days. Bacterial growth in the vase is what kills roses faster than anything except direct sun. Cloudy water on day two means leaves slipped below the waterline. Strip those out.
Ethylene is the silent killer. Ripening fruit like apples, bananas, and tomatoes gives off ethylene gas, and roses sitting near a fruit bowl age about twice as fast. Move the flowers or move the fruit.
Red and pastel roses fade under direct UV. Ambient light is fine. Afternoon sun through a west-facing window is not. Try a hallway table, or a bedside, or a dining room that's away from the window. Anywhere but a windowsill.
Why the roses in this grid land differently
Andrew on why we built the network
The short version: the roses above are made by a florist in or close to where they are being delivered. We started the network in 2009 because the warehouse model was already visible then, and Siobhan and I did not want to build that. A warehouse picks roses off a production line. They get boxed and sent by Australia Post overnight. What arrives at the other end is a bunch of tight-budded stems in a cardboard sleeve, eight or nine hours out of refrigeration. The recipient has to trim them and find a vase. Most of them hope for the best.
What we do instead: a partner florist gets the order in the morning. They build the arrangement from that day's bucket stock, then drive it to the door. Same day if you order before 2pm on a weekday, or before 10am on a Saturday. The rose that gets picked is the one with the best sepal reflex. The water in the vase is clean. The recipient opens the door and takes the arrangement inside. No trimming, no hunting for a vase.
The honest trade-off with a network: we do not control every florist's bench to the same standard every day. A warehouse has consistency because it has replaced judgment with a process. Our partner florists exercise judgment. Most of them are better at it than a process would be, which is why we built the network this way. Some days a florist is having an off day and it shows in the build. We do not pretend otherwise. If something arrives that doesn't match the photo, the number at the top of the page goes to us directly.
Verified customer review
"The smile on her face was amazing."
Rob, verified Feefo customer. February 2024. Single Rose With Chocolates, Valentine's Day delivery.
Send the same giftAnna on why this works
Rob's review flags two specific things: the Valentine's timing and the reaction at the door. Both are harder operationally than they sound.
Valentine's Day shifts the typical rose order. Most weeks a dozen red wins. On 14 February the single-rose-with-chocolates moves the way a dozen usually does. It's a gift that wants to be unwrapped twice: once for the flower, once for the chocolates. At a work desk between meetings, that doubled-unwrapping moment is most of the gift. A dozen red roses arriving on a shared-office floor can feel like a billboard. A single rose with chocolates reads as a message passed between two people.
The operational side is less romantic than the gift. Our phones start ringing at 7am on 14 February and do not stop until evening. The driver manifest gets rebuilt across the day as we triage which addresses need the lunchtime window and which ones are holding out for a dinner booking at seven. Rob's gift landed because it hit her morning, which meant she carried the feeling all day.
After you order
Once you have placed the rose order, here is what happens on our end.
The order lands in our system. If it is before 2pm on a weekday, or before 10am on a Saturday, it goes same day. We route it to a partner florist in or close to the delivery suburb, one we have worked with long enough to know their build quality and timing. They pick from their bucket stock and build the arrangement to spec. Then it goes out. Your card message rides along in the little envelope tied to the presentation.
You do not get a confirmation photo. It's the one question we get more than any other: "Can you send me a picture when it's done?" The honest answer is no, because taking a photo of every arrangement before dispatch would add thirty minutes to every build and we would miss delivery windows. The phone call you are waiting for is from the recipient, not from us. They are usually the one who rings.
If something does not arrive by end of day, or arrives looking wrong, call us on 1300 360 469. We answer between 7am and 6pm on weekdays, and from 10am on Saturdays.
Andrew on the rose side of the network
I ring partner florists myself when something rose-specific comes up. Red Naomi supply in winter. Cold-chain timing in December. The delivery-pace question most people ask: roses go out like any other flower once the order is placed. The difference is a rose order often has a specific recipient and a specific moment attached. An anniversary dinner at seven. The hour before someone's proposal. We flag those so the driver gets a window, not just a day.
