The most expensive flowers in the world

The price of a flower almost never depends on how it looks: it depends on how long it takes to produce, how hard it is to propagate and how many people want it at the same time.

The most expensive in the world

• Shenzhen Nongke orchid. A variety developed in a lab in China over eight years. It was auctioned in 2005 for the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It blooms every four or five years.
• Juliet rose. English breeder David Austin spent fifteen years and an enormous sum developing it. Today it is sold normally, but the development cost made it legendary.
• Rothschild's slipper orchid (Paphiopedilum rothschildianum). It takes up to fifteen years to bloom for the first time and is endemic to a very small area of Borneo. It is protected and its trade is restricted.
• Kadupul. A cactus from Sri Lanka that opens at night and wilts before dawn. It is said to be priceless simply because it cannot be harvested or transported: it never arrives anywhere alive.
• Saffron. It is the most expensive spice in the world by weight, and it is the stigmas of a flower. It takes around 150,000 flowers to make one kilo (about 2.2 lb), picked by hand at dawn.

Tulip mania

It is the most famous historical case. In the Netherlands of the 1630s, tulip bulbs —especially those with streaked petals, whose veining was actually caused by a virus— became objects of financial speculation. At the peak, a single bulb was worth several times a craftsman's annual wage.

The market collapsed in 1637. It is commonly cited as the first documented financial bubble in history, although historians debate quite a bit how far the episode really reached.

What is expensive in Argentina

Without reaching those extremes, local prices have their own logic too:

• Peonies. A window of a few weeks a year and huge demand for weddings. Out of season, imported, they change an entire budget.
• Uncommon orchid varieties. Years of growing before the first bloom.
• Very long-stemmed roses (70 cm / about 28 in or more). It is a real difference in quality, not a pricing whim.
• Any flower out of season. It is the most common cause and the most avoidable.

How not to overpay

There is just one rule and it always works: buy in season. The same amount of money goes twice as far with seasonal flowers. The calendar is in seasonal flowers month by month, and what goes into the price of a bouquet, in how much a bouquet of roses costs.

Availability of each flower changes with the season. If you are looking for a specific flower, ask us before ordering and we will confirm whether we have it.