Flower delivery to Portugal

Deliveries, swaps and what happens if nobody answers

Deliveries run Monday to Saturday, which means an order placed on a Thursday evening and one placed on a Friday morning both have a working day ahead of them. If a particular flower isn't in that morning, the florist swaps it for one of equal or greater value that keeps the same look. If the recipient isn't home, the florist typically calls them or arranges redelivery. Wreaths and formal funeral pieces need 24–48 hours' notice.

Addresses, postcodes and door codes

Addresses in Portugal run four digits, a hyphen and three digits, then the town — for example, 1000-001 Lisboa. Include the recipient's local phone number too: florists use it to confirm availability and the exact address. Apartment deliveries often need a door code, so add it at checkout. And someone mid-journey — at an airport, railway station or cruise terminal — is almost impossible to reach with a delivery; send to their hotel, office or home address instead, timed for after they arrive.

What else you can send with the flowers

Alongside fresh flowers there are dried flowers, silk flowers, preserved roses, plants and gift baskets, plus over 70 chocolates, wine and champagne to send on their own or beside a bouquet. The flowers themselves follow a classical, symmetrical shape: a clear round hand-tied form with generous foliage, with eucalyptus, ruscus, asparagus fern and pittosporum doing most of the filling. Roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, lilies, gerberas and orchids are what you will typically see in a bunch here. Presentation is hand-tied and wrapped in paper or cellophane, tied with ribbon, though boxed arrangements are a newer city habit.

Portuguese flower customs and where stems are grown

Chrysanthemums belong to the cemetery here and are not given as a cheerful gift; they are the conventional funeral and grave flower. Red carnations carry the memory of the 25 April 1974 revolution and read as political rather than romantic. White lilies and white roses are usual in condolence arrangements, and a coroa, the standing wreath on an easel, is the expected form sent to a funeral. Flowers are the usual thing to bring a host. Madeira and the Azores grow strelitzia, proteas and chrysanthemums and send subtropical stems all year; on the mainland, field-grown flowers run roughly April to June, with greenhouses and imports through Spain and the Netherlands covering the rest. Wholesale trade runs through MARL, the Mercado Abastecedor da Regiao de Lisboa, at Loures.

Which dates to order ahead for

Mother's Day (Dia da Mae), the first Sunday of May, and Valentine's Day (Dia dos Namorados) on 14 February are the exception to the usual week — florists open for the big flower days, so your order can arrive even when the date falls on a Sunday. Order at least 48 hours ahead of either. Mother's Day is the heaviest flower-buying day of the year here; Valentine's Day runs on red roses, sold singly and in dozens. All Saints' Day (Dia de Todos os Santos) on 1 November takes families to family graves with chrysanthemums. Freedom Day (Dia da Liberdade) on 25 April puts those same carnations in the street, worn and carried. Christmas (Natal) on 25 December brings table arrangements and poinsettias to the family meal.

Sending to a hospital, an office or a hotel

For a hospital delivery, enter the hospital's own city and full address, not the recipient's home town — someone may be in a hospital in another town entirely, and the order has to name where the hospital actually is. Workplace deliveries should arrive within office hours, so choose a day the recipient is in. Hotel receptions ask for the reservation name and room number, so have both ready when you fill the address in.

How does it work if you are not in the country? Most orders for Portugal are placed from abroad, which is the ordinary case here and not the exception. Sending from another country changes nothing at your end: you order online, and the arrangement is made and delivered locally, by hands that are already in the right town. The short answer: your distance changes the clock you are watching and nothing else. Choose the arrangement and let the florist take it from there.