The number on a flower's vase-life tag is its total lifespan, not what's left by the time it reaches your door.

What's actually in season, not a generic catalogue

This week's market board

The honest reason "florist's choice" exists: a Pacific Northwest bloom calendar, species by month. Nobody, however well-sourced, has fresh local peonies in December.

How to read this chart

A checkmark marks a genuinely in-season month for that species around Tacoma, not a shipping window — the mark is a text symbol, not a colour alone, so it reads the same with or without colour vision.

Shop the standing collection

Real, fixed prices — no "contact for pricing." Every row below links into the order form.

Florist's choice, honestly

What's fixed

The price, the size band, and the standard of stems used.

What's not fixed

The exact species and stem count — pulled from whatever this week’s market board lists as genuinely in season.

Start an order

The countdown starts at the farm, not the shop door

Freshness math

A stem's total vase life is a fixed, published number per species — but that clock starts ticking the moment it's cut. Roughly 80% of cut flowers sold in the US are imported, moving through a cold chain that maxes out around 12 days even under efficient standing orders, with the fastest shipments still running about 4 days farm-to-store. A stem cut in the Skagit or Puyallup Valley and delivered to this studio within a day or two keeps nearly all of its published vase life instead.

Reading the vase-life table

Remaining vase life = published total − days already spent cut-to-shop. The conservative low end of each published range is used as the "total" below, so the remaining figure this page shows never overstates what a stem actually has left.

Conditioning matters: even a stem with published days left can wilt early if it isn't recut and hydrated properly — see care instructions below.

The same species, two very different countdowns

Garden rose — Skagit-grown, delivered next day

7d published − 1d cut-to-shop = 6d remaining

Garden rose — Wholesale-imported, ~6 days in transit

7d published − 6d cut-to-shop = 1d remaining

Dahlia — Puyallup-grown, delivered next day

4d published − 1d cut-to-shop = 3d remaining

Peony — Skagit-grown, delivered within 2 days

5d published − 2d cut-to-shop = 3d remaining

Zones, fees & cutoff times

Delivery

Four delivery zones across Tacoma and the South Sound, each with its own fee and same-day cutoff time.

How ordering works

1. Choose a size Pick an arrangement size from the standing price list, or the seasonal market bouquet.
2. Pick a delivery zone Zone sets the fee and the same-day cutoff time — see the delivery table above.
3. Add the occasion & message A short message and the occasion — birthday, sympathy, anniversary, altar — go straight onto the card.
4. Teresa confirms A confirmation by phone or email before your zone’s cutoff, every time — never a silent order.

Weekly, biweekly or monthly

Subscriptions

Three tiers, each pulling that cycle's design from the same market board above — no two deliveries are typed identically.

Subscription cadence

1. Choose a frequency Weekly, biweekly or monthly — see the tiers table above.
2. This week's design pulls from the market board No two deliveries are typed identically — each one is built from what the seasonal chart shows in stock that week.
3. Delivery day Delivered on your chosen day, inside your zone’s standing delivery window.
4. Pause or swap anytime No long-term contract — see the pause & swap terms above.

Pause & swap terms

Pause

Skip any upcoming delivery online or by phone, no fee, any time before that delivery’s cutoff.

Swap

Trade this cycle’s design for a different size within the same tier, same notice window.

Cancel

Cancel anytime — no long-term contract on any tier.

Choose a plan

Same-day capability, handled with restraint

Sympathy & church flowers

Two standing parts of this shop's everyday work, not special requests.

Same-day sympathy flowers

Sympathy sprays and standing arrangements, built and delivered same-day ahead of a zone's cutoff — a genuine, everyday capacity, handled quietly rather than promoted. Shown here as arrangement photography only, nothing from the service itself.

Standing altar arrangement — two Tacoma parishes

Teresa keeps a standing weekly altar-flower relationship with two Tacoma parishes — a genuine, ongoing part of this shop's revenue and its place in the neighborhood, not a one-time donation. Contact the shop directly to discuss a standing arrangement for your own parish.

Here's what a bouquet actually costs to build

The Proctor District bouquet

A stem recipe with real numbers, not a mystery: stems, hard goods and design labor, summed to the shelf price — the trade's own pricing convention, shown instead of asserted.

Reading the recipe

Fresh stems mark up 3.5× from wholesale; hard goods mark up 2.25×; design labor is charged at 22% of the marked-up materials total — every line below sums to the next, computed once, never typed twice.

What protects the days a stem has left

Care instructions

Two short routines: what happens the moment flowers arrive, and what keeps them going afterward.

Conditioning on arrival

1. Unwrap Remove all wrapping and packaging as soon as the flowers arrive — paper and sleeves trap ethylene.
2. Recut at 45°, under water A fresh diagonal cut, made underwater or immediately submerged, keeps air out of the stem.
3. Strip foliage below the waterline Any leaf sitting in the water rots and feeds bacteria that shorten every stem’s vase life.
4. Hydrate 1–2 hours, cool and dark A cool, dim spot for the first hour or two lets stems fully rehydrate before they’re arranged or displayed.
5. Feed preservative Flower food in the vase water measurably extends vase life over plain water — the packet is not decorative.

Vase care at home

1. Recut every 2–3 days A fresh angled cut re-opens the stem so it can keep taking up water.
2. Change the water every 2–3 days Rinse the vase each time — cloudy water means bacteria, not just old water.
3. Keep from heat, fruit & drafts Direct sun, heating vents, a fruit bowl and cold drafts all shorten a bouquet’s remaining days.

Care & conditioning glossary

Conditioning

The full process of preparing a cut stem to last: recut, strip, hydrate, then feed — not just "put it in water."

Hydrate

Letting a freshly recut stem take up water fully before it’s arranged or displayed, usually 1–2 hours in a cool, dark spot.

Preservative

The flower-food packet — sugar, acidifier and a mild antibacterial agent — that measurably extends vase life over plain water.

Ethylene

A ripening gas released by fruit and by wilting flowers themselves, which shortens nearby blooms’ remaining vase life — the reason cut flowers stay clear of the fruit bowl.

Tacoma, on purpose

About Teresa & the studio

Teresa Nakamura is a third-generation Japanese-American florist running Nakamura Floral Co. from the Proctor District in Tacoma, Washington — a real Pacific Northwest flower region: Tacoma sits between the Skagit Valley (tulips, dahlias) and the Puyallup Valley, historically the US's dahlia-growing capital.

Weddings & events

Training, sourcing & family history

Glossary

SWGM

Seattle Wholesale Growers Market — the real farmer-owned flower co-op Nakamura Floral Co. sources through, rather than import wholesalers.

Cut-to-shop days

How many days pass between a stem being cut at the farm and arriving at this shop — the only other input the remaining-vase-life figure needs.

Stem recipe

A priced list of the exact stems, hard goods and labor that make up one arrangement, summed to its shelf price — not a mystery number.

Wholesale cost

What the shop itself pays a grower or the co-op per stem, before any markup — the number a stem recipe starts from.

What customers say, and what they ask

Customer trust & FAQ

Order & delivery request

Phone and this form are the fastest way to reach the shop; email works too. LinkedIn is for wholesale and press only — see the footer.