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Buying flowers: how to order the best-value Valentine's bouquet

Will your gift come up smelling of roses?

Keep your sweetheart sweet with flowers this year.
Choose from bargain bunches, original presentation, free or fair-trade flowers, classy gifts or something a bit different.

Valentine's day is an awful Catch 22 - you’ll pay dearly to buy your partner a Valentine's gift but you’ll also pay dearly if you don’t. Flowers make up a huge 58% of all Valentine's expenditure and with such an enormous range of online florists and flower delivery services it's difficult to know where to begin, or how to tell if you're getting the best deal.

Whether you're after a classic bunch of red roses or an assorted bouquet, we've rounded up some of the best places to go to order. Some sites offer a much wider range of bouquets to choose from, others will even give you free things with your purchase, and there are savings to be made on delivery costs.

Original, but not the best

Whenever anyone says flowers, Interflora comes to mind, but are they the best?

Maybe if you want to splash out big-time: at £499.99 Interflora’s most expensive Valentine's bouquet is £390 more expensive than the next highest-priced bouquet we found available from another online vendor. Delivery costs are rarely included in the price - add on £4.99 for next-day or £6.99 for same-day delivery. They’ll also slap on an extra £3 charge if you need to stipulate whether they are delivered before or after 1pm.

There are non-Valentine's bouquets available for £19.99 that have delivery included in the price so if you are going to use Interflora, getting one of these instead of a specially designated valentines one could be a way to save money.

Bestpresentation ideas

Next Flowers is similar in price to M&S and John Lewis and offers some really great presentation ideas. The Jumbo cup of roses is a huge tea cup filled with pink roses and although it is not strictly branded a Valentine's bouquet, it is certainly original and you can keep the cup after the flowers die. They also do a Valentine's ceramic handbag (it's really a reusable vase) that comes with red roses and a necklace for £28. Next’s bouquets start at a fairly reasonable £18 and go up to £65 but none of these prices include delivery, which is a standard £3.75. Although the other vendors all do add-ons, Next gives you the option of adding their own fragrance for only £5 which is not only individual but reasonable.

Morefor your money

If you want more flowers for the same price, John Lewis is offering somewhat random percentages of free flowers in it’s Valentine's selection. The Super Heaven Scent arrangement, £40, has 36% more blooms than it’s standard counterpart and the Super Spring Dance bouquet, £30, has 46% more, although it isn’t technically for Valentine's day. John Lewis’ bouquets range from £18 to £95 and delivery is included. It has a good range of good-value Valentine's bouquets that aren’t all boring red roses. We particularly like their fair-trade flowers, so you can support farmers in the developing world as well as please your partner.

Supermarketshopping

Although Tesco.com may not seen like the classiest option, buying from the supermarket has big advantages, not least for your wallet.

Firstly delivery is free on all bouquets and there are a lot to choose from. Flowers range from £19 up to just £46 for the biggest bunch and they also have really competitive prices on delivery of non-traditional floral presents like orchids.

Added bonuses of buying from a supermarket are the chocolates and wines you can add to the delivery at bargain prices. If you’ve got a Clubcard, you earn reward points on everything you buy which works you a little bit further towards getting money off future purchases. The only small set-back is that due to the nature of Tesco’s huge turnover, it doesn't have any special Valentine's bouquets online at the moment.

Like Tesco, Asda has a load of cheaper options starting from just £9.95 for a single rose or a big bunch of carnations, including first-class postal delivery, which is a bit less reliable, but saves you a lot. Extras include a box of chocolates for just £4.98 and on top of all that you can supersize any bouquet for just £4 extra.

Pureclass

If you want something really classy regardless of price, Marks and Spencer oozes Valentine's sophistication. The Valentine's roses are more expensive than elsewhere, but you’re paying for special breeds of roses such Grand Prix roses or Black Magic roses. There are some really fab arrangements like the Language of Love gift box , £35, which is beautiful and a cheaper option compared to the Passion gift bag, £75, but they are both gorgeously presented and will make your partner melt.

M&S’s prices range between £19.50 and £99 and lots of the more expensive Valentine's bouquets come with free chocolates. They are also offering 50% more roses in their non-Valentine's bouquets (so not red roses) which means you can get more for your money if you don’t mind what colour your roses are. M&S also offers a range of hampers with chocolates, champagne and flowers for decent prices - the fancy Valentine's hamper costs £39.50 for all the Valentine's staples. There are no hidden charges at M&S as all deliveries are free.

Specialist online florists

Because of the stiff competition between online florists, some are offering freebies with your Valentine's purchase, which is a bonus. Flowers Direct runs a ‘Temptation’ loyalty scheme all year round which costs £39.99 to join and then gives you 20% off flowers and 10% off all wines and champagnes, plus you get a free bouquet for joining. If you’re a flowers enthusiast this is great, but for one-off purchases it’s perhaps not so tempting.

However, if you’re going to spend £40 anyway on flowers (and it’s not unlikely you’ll end up spending close to that even if you don’t really plan to!) then you might as well join the loyalty scheme, get the free flowers and then if you do happen to buy some flowers during the rest of the year, get 20% off.

Flowers Direct’s prices range from £17 for tulips, to £80 and delivery is £3.99. They are also running a 5% discount at the moment when you enter the code WIN5 at the checkout.

Flowers Direct also runs Boots’ flower delivery service so rather than getting them from the Boots website, click through directly to Flowers Direct to get this discount or join the loyalty card scheme. Flowers Direct is partnered with Flowergram.co.uk and both the sites offer a fairly similar service. Delivery is still £3.99, but Flowergram does have some bouquets for just £15, which is marginally cheaper than Flowers Direct.

Quixk tip: both sites are running another promotion at the moment when you spend over £45 on the site you get two free flights to a selection of European destinations (use the code 2FF4U at the checkout when you make your purchase). The catch is that you have to pay the flight taxes and book a minimum stay of three nights in a hotel designated by Stuart Lawrence Promotions (they allocate you a hotel based on how many stars you request, but you can then change the hotel if you're not happy with it), though you have 12 months to use it.

Something a bitdifferent

Crocus.co.uk is not your standard online florist. In fact, it’s a proper online garden centre that is endorsed by Alan Titchmarsh and is also a wholesaler to the landscape gardening industry. If you are only interested in buying a bouquet then this won’t affect you much at all and they offer a range of bouquets from £12.95 up to £109.95 with an added delivery charge of £5.95. However, if you do want something a bit different, Crocus.co.uk is the place to get it. One of their bouquet suggestions is a lime tree that will grow limes up to 8cm long. They also have four-litre rose plant pots that are only £8.95 so instead of paying lots for cut roses, you can get a plant plus gift wrapping and delivery for under £20. The only thing to remember is that you have to order at least a week ahead for the potted plants. All purchases come in snazzy crocus boxes and if you really don’t know what to get, they have a resident planter on hand to give you advice via email.

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