A dear friend of mine is getting married today, in a state halfway across the country. None of her close friends are there to support her, mostly because she only recently moved away from Seattle to be close to her sweetheart. But at least she’s going to hold a bouquet of flowers I made Wednesday and sent via FedEx overnight delivery service. Her new husband will be wearing a sweet little boutonniere I sent along.

Here’s how to successfully make and send a long-distance gift of flowers:

1. Select durable flowers with fairly tight buds. I chose all Northwest-grown flowers in a cream-to-peach-to-coral palette:

• Spray roses have tiny heads and are long-lasting. ‘Moonstruck’ is a creamy white variety grown by Peterkort Roses.
• Peonies are super-durable, especially when you start at the “marshmallow” stage when just a small amount of color is showing at the top of the bud. The blush peonies I used are sublime, grown by Ojeda Farms.
• Ranunculus are a more fragile than the spray roses or tighter peonies, but the petal colors are so delicious that I took a risk. I chose mostly-closed flower heads and tried to nestle them between other, sturdier flowers to sort of shelter them in the bouquet. These were grown by Vivian Larson of Everyday Flowers. She literally saved the last ranunculus stems of the season for me.
• Poppies, especially in bud with those fuzzy green cases, are the epitome of springtime. The petals on these are more like a persimmon-orange color, which made them a little too dark for the bouquet palette. So I used only the tightest buds and lifted them up above the main bouquet. A sliver of the dark orange peeked out, but that only added to its charm. These were grown by Jello Mold Farm.

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