What Flowers Do You Send a Man?

Men are sent flowers about a tenth as often as women, and when they are, the flowers are usually chosen as if the recipient were a woman who happened to be called Michael. Then everyone wonders why he looked slightly embarrassed.

Flowers for a man are not a different product. They are the same product chosen with more restraint, and the restraint is the whole answer. Here is how we choose them.

Send a box, not a bouquet

A bouquet arrives as a task. He has to find a vase, and the odds that he owns one are not high; then he has to cut the stems and arrange it, which he has never done, in front of whoever is watching. A box arrives finished. He puts it on the desk or the console table and the job is done. For a man, and especially for a man at work, the box is not a stylistic choice. It is the difference between a gift and an errand.

One colour

The single most reliable rule. One colour, or one colour and green. White roses. Deep red. All green — foliage, green roses, hydrangea in that pale lime. Navy blue and white. A mixed pastel arrangement reads as feminine to almost everyone, not because of any rule but because that is what the culture has spent a century showing us. One colour reads as considered.

The box colour does the talking

Our boxes come in white, navy, green, blue, lilac, blush, hot pink and the striped Carousel. For a man the navy, the green and the white do the work: the flowers sit inside a colour that looks like it belongs in a study or an office, and the whole thing looks like an object he chose rather than an object someone chose for him.

What to avoid

Pink, unless you know he loves it; some men do, and then it is a perfect private joke. Anything with a bow or a balloon. Anything described as "romantic" on the website unless it is romantic. And a card that apologises for the flowers — "I know men don't usually get flowers, but…" — which turns a gift into an explanation. Say why you sent them, in one line, and stop.

Occasions where it is exactly right

A promotion or a new role, delivered to the office on the first morning. A recovery, at home, when he cannot go anywhere and the room needs something alive in it. A thank-you to a man who made something happen for you. A birthday from someone who wants to be remembered for it. And an apology, where a box of white roses on his desk says the thing you cannot say in a text.

Three we send to men

The card

One line. "For the new job — you earned it." "Get well. The office is quieter without you." "Thank you for Tuesday." His name at the top, yours at the bottom. Nothing about the flowers themselves; they are doing that part.