Does anyone else hate fresh flowers?

[crochetmonkey74]

It strick me today that I hate fresh flowers as a gift.
I like the look of them , and I love a gorgeous garden or a potted tree/arrangement by front doors etc but when I have a bouquet I just hate it. I can never make it look nice, the petals all fall off and they are just a faff
Of course I can never admit this as its something you're meant to love. I'm not ungrateful, and I actually buy them as a gift for others, so this is a bit lighthearted I suppose.

However I think letter box flowers are often an awful gift as they're a job for the recipient to do, usually sent at a time when they don't need more on their plate. Like when you've just had a baby for example - no I don't really want to stand for 10 mins and arrange some flowers right now actually

Oh dear yes, or when someone has died. DMiL ended up with a big water mark on her dining table after DFiL died.

And when someone has just given birth obviously they want chocolate!

I hate receiving flowers...let's say someone spends £50 on a bouquet to send to me, of course I'll thank them but I'd be far happier with a £20 voucher for Sainsbury's and it would be cheaper for them too 😂

I don’t hate them but I’m not good at arranging them and they do make me feel a bit sad because they’re dying.

I’m out walking the dog in the same areas every day and I love the trees, shrubs and flowers I see growing wild. You get to see the whole cycle.

Now actually, sunflowers and daffodils are the exception! I love those and fill my house with daffs

I adore flowers!
I sometimes buy them for myself if I have a 'me' day when I go to a nice coffee shop, buy an expensive interior magazine, cakes from a proper independent cake shop to take home etc etc A bit of a ritual.
I also really enjoy buying them as gifts from a local independent florist where I can be extravagant and choose unusual mixes with the expert help of the shop owner.
I get real enjoyment when I receive flowers as gifts from friends/acquaintances or my family and I particularly like it when DH randomly brings me flowers 'just because'.
I also pick them from my garden in the summer.
Late autumn/winter I make my own giant foliage arrangements with items picked up from my garden or the odd weird/interesting item I find on a walk in the woods after a storm. These arrangements don't really need water and last for ages, gorgeous natural colours. I love them.

I don't buy anywhere near as many flowers as I used to though because they are so expensive nowadays.

I have found my people 😂I have also name changed just for this thread as some of this is outing 😬

I hate, hate, hate being given fresh flowers. You have to spend ages trimming them, finding a vase, arranging them and then a few days later they start stinking and rotting 😖They also take up valuable space in my green bin which I have to pay to be emptied!

We have a good friend that DH and I do favours for from time to time. If he does them a favour he gets beer - which he likes. If I do them a favour I get flowers 😩No matter how many times I say 'no need' they always do and the flowers keep coming.....

I get DH to take them into his workplace and give them to a colleague who he knows likes flowers. At least they are not being wasted that way. So if you are married to J and she keeps coming home with flowers that a work colleague gave her, and tells you that the work colleague's wife hates flowers, I promise you - it is entirely true😄

A couple of people sent me flowers recently. It was really kind of them but flowers & kittens definitely don’t mix.

They had to go on a high shelf in my bedroom & then the kittens had to be shut out of it unless I was in there too, so it was all a bit of a pain.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as 'hate' but I'm not really a fan. I just find them so wasteful and am at a point in my life where the sustainability of them (depending where they come from) is an issue for me.

I don't really get much out of having a vase of flowers in the house that I know will have cost someone a small fortune, just to effectively watch them die off over the course of the week/two weeks at best. The unpacking, trimming and arranging is also not something I actively enjoy. Of course I'm grateful when I'm sent them (or anything!) and it's lovely to be thought of but they are effectively an unwanted gift for me, unfortunately.

As an aside I do love flowers, but prefer to see them in the garden/visit a garden and see them in situ.

I've told this story before on here but many years ago I had a big birthday. I was skint at the time. My friends and family were all better off than me...I received about eight bouquets of very expensive flowers. I only had one vase. I sat in my kitchen with about £500 quids worth of flowers propped up in pint glasses and jugs. I could have cried.

Oh I love them. Freddie’s flowers every few weeks is my treat to myself. I love taking the time out of a busy day to arrange them - find it very therapeutic. I read recently the Japanese have a name for flower arranging as it’s good for your mental health (for some people!). And that really resonated with me.

I’m quite fussy though - don’t like lilies or yellow flowers. Love roses, tulips, peonies, wild flowers. I pick them from the garden in summer.

I agree the quality of supermarket flowers has gone downhill and they don’t last long/are expensive. Freddie’s flowers last a couple of weeks.

Oh @Comedycook

Can't bloody stand them.

They set my asthma off. Make a mess. Look awful once they come out the pretty paper and quite frankly seem a bit of a waste.

Mind I hate gardening too and have no interest in my mothers endless prattle about her latest garden centre bargains.

We get married this year and am having all artificial flowers, hiring the venue ones and will possible sell on mine after the event.

I normally like them, but I think they are a crap gift for new parents following birth. Just another thing to look after and keep alive! We got several bunches on a day I ended up back in hospital, and came back home to bunches of half dead flowers still in cellophane!

I hate them too. To me they are such a pointless thing to buy and they should be outside growing, not cut for someone so they can watch them slowly die.
Whenever I’ve been bought them I’ve always wished they were a box of chocolates instead!

Although I prefer a wild flower or a plant, I usually always have a bunch of flowers on the go. I get a bunch or 2 of roses or tulips, all the same colour as they’re easier to arrange. Split them into 4, then sort of cross thread the stems into each other. As for the letterbox flowers, I thought it a brilliant idea when I first saw them. You can’t possibly go wrong with rearranging them into the neat little vase.

I don’t like flowers in the house but I love them in my garden. Along with many other things, I am allergic to some.

100% this!

Yes me too . They're basically dead . But I love orchids so I do let people know that !

I'm not a fan of fresh flowers.
I associate them with sadness for some reason

I feel guilty as they've been chopped down

Prefer a plant

But I'm not really even green fingered

Have a friend who can take some evergreen stems out of the garden - and arrange them to look amazing. I'd rather have that to be honest....

Yes! When my mother died I had 9 deliveries of flowers. I hated it. Every time I walked in to a room and see some I'd remember she'd died. And then they all started dying too

Hate them. Don’t even own a vase so then need to think how to store them.

It’s an extra job for me to do, so doesn’t feel like a gift although well intentioned! Just an extra hassle…

I remember someone sending me flowers just after I gave birth. The flowers ended up staying in the box and eventually were thrown away….

ME!!! I just see work 😂