Rosie's Splurge
Sometimes you want flowers that make you gasp. These are the ones I'd buy if someone else were paying — the extravagant, the ridiculously scented, the ones that turn a room into something from a painting. Worth every penny.
These aren't everyday flowers. They're the ones you buy when you want to feel something. A single stem of tuberose will perfume an entire room. A bunch of peonies will make you wonder why you ever bought anything else. Go on. Treat yourself.
Peony
PremiumSarah Bernhardt
“Forty-something petals of blush pink silk that smell like your grandmother's garden in June. Three weeks a year. Worth every second of the wait.”
Worth every single penny. That ridiculous, ruffled, generous bloom that smells like your grandmother's garden in June. The one flower I'd always choose.
Garden Rose
PremiumGertrude Jekyll
“So intensely scented they use her for commercial rose oil. She smells the way roses used to smell before the industry bred the perfume out.”
The rose that smells like what you think all roses should smell like. Rich, deep, old-fashioned. Three stems in a jug and the whole room changes.
Lily of the Valley
PremiumConvallaria majalis
“Six inches tall, tiny white bells, and a scent that can fill an entire room from an egg cup. The flower that proves small things are the most powerful.”
Tiny, exquisite, and extraordinarily expensive as cut stems. That scent is bottled and sold for hundreds of pounds. The real thing is better.
Chocolate Cosmos
PremiumCosmos atrosanguineus
“Lean in on a warm July afternoon and tell me it doesn't smell of dark chocolate. I watched a woman close her eyes and say 'brownies.'”
It genuinely smells of dark chocolate. Deep burgundy, velvety, and deeply unusual. Not easy to find, which is part of the appeal.
Tuberose
PremiumThe Pearl
“The first time someone handed me a stem, I stood there breathing it in for an embarrassingly long time.”
The most intoxicating scent in the flower world. One stem will perfume an entire room. Heady, narcotic, and completely magnificent.
Dahlia
PremiumCafé au Lait
“Dinner-plate sized, creamy pink, and no two blooms quite the same. The dahlia that made me rethink everything I thought about dahlias.”
Dinner-plate sized, the colour of a sunrise through old lace. Absurdly beautiful and the Instagram flower for good reason. Grow your own if you can.
Lilac
PremiumSensation
“Each tiny floret is deep purple edged in white — like someone dipped it in milk. And the scent goes straight to wherever your best memories live.”
That brief, glorious fortnight in May when lilac is in flower. The scent is spring itself. Buy an armful and don't you dare feel guilty about it.
Delphinium
PremiumBlack Knight
“That deep indigo against a pale July sky — it's the kind of thing you stop walking for.”
Those towering spires of deep purple-blue. Theatrical, impractical, and utterly magnificent. The flower equivalent of wearing velvet to the shops.
Life is short and flowers don't last forever. That's rather the point of them. If you're going to splurge on anything, let it be something beautiful and temporary — something that reminds you to pay attention while it's here. — Rosie
Rosie ✿