Flower Delivery Wasn’t Always So Simple

One of the great traditions of modern times is the ability to Send Flowers for various occasions. It may be to celebrate a happy event like a birthday or wedding; it may be part of a holiday tradition like sending a table centerpiece at Thanksgiving or a Poinsettia at Christmas; or, it might be for something solemn, like a funeral, but the gesture of Flower Delivery has become firmly entrenched in our culture. The Internet and sites like 1-800flowers.com have taken Delivery flowers to the next level, but it wasn’t always so easy.

In fact, it’s only modern technology that’s made this possible. While ancient civilizations appreciated flowers (paintings and frescoes frequently feature brilliantly engineered showcase gardens), Delivery flowers were hardly an option when the fastest transportation available was horse and refrigeration was limited to blocks of ice packed away in northern climates. Besides being perishable, the thing about flowers is that many of the most spectacular ornamental varieties either grow only in southern climates, or bloom in northern areas during a very short summer growing season. When you put those factors together, it’s no wonder that flowers were usually the prized decorations of royalty and the very rich, but the concept of widespread Flower Delivery remained quite out of reach.

Modern transportation quite effectively upended that equation. With the appearance of fast and reliable train networks stretching across Europe and America, it was suddenly possible to transport perishables great distances before they spoiled. Industrialization meant more people living in the cities and, being paid wages, more of them than ever had some disposable money. The stage was being set for Delivery flowers to become a possibility. At first, the ability to Send Flowers was limited to the very wealthy, but it had begun to trickle down into the general population and floral arrangements were becoming important parts of many special occasions. Ornamental greenhouses were built in some of the bigger cities, with their colorful flowering plants available to be seen by the paying public.

The final pieces of the puzzle were refrigeration, automobiles and the advent of commercial air travel.  Refrigeration meant that flowers could be kept fresh longer, so florists could actually stock flowers without worry that their goods would spoil before anyone bought them. Automobiles meant that anyone could Send Flowers to someone and they could be delivered to the destination in a matter of hours. Air travel opened up the southern hemisphere with its exotic flowers and extended growing seasons. With rapid travel by airplane, blooms grown thousands of miles away could end up in a florist’s shop in New York City in the middle of winter.