Gift Delivery for Men

Some people see a gift of flowers as exclusively female. The natural beauty and delicate fragrance of flowers lend themselves to the feminine, to be sure, but just because something is attractive and easy on the nose doesn’t mean it can’t be an appropriate gift for men. In fact, I know many men who love a gift of flowers or other plants as much or more than women.

The trick in finding good flower and plant gift delivery for men is focusing on the individual you’re gifting and the sort of flowers or plants they like. When it comes to floral gift delivery, there are three kinds of men: the softy, the gardener, and the collector. We’ll take a look at each type of guy and a list of good floral gift delivery ideas for each.

Gift Delivery for the Softy

The softy is a difficult creature to identify in the wild. In my own experience, the toughest looking and hardest working men are often softys at heart. The only way to know if a guy is a softy is to get to know him.

The softy will often cry at particularly sad commercials. Remember the ketchup commercial where the young boy can’t get the ketchup out of the bottle and a single tear runs down his cheek? That commercial is the perfect way to identify the softy. Anything sad is an opportunity for the softy to well up with tears and show his true colors.

You won’t recognize a softy until you’re in his natural environment. A softy has keepsakes from his childhood around his home and tends to be the kind of guy that gets drunk on just a couple of bottles of beer. Thankfully for people looking to give the softy a gift, he is the easiest type to choose a floral delivery for.

The softy in your life is the only type of guy who will really appreciate a gift of cut flowers. Cut flowers tend to be the domain of the female–single-stem roses, arrangements of cut flowers, and bouquets of fresh flowers just aren’t masculine enough for most guys. But not the softy. He may work in construction, he may have played a little ball in college, but when it comes time for his birthday, an arrangement of beautiful fresh flowers is all his soft heart requires.

Here are the best flowers and plants for gift delivery to the softy:

• Chrysanthemums—these flowers are attractive, available in many colors, and stand for friendship
• Daisies—it may seem a little too feminine, but these flowers are symbols of loyalty
• Red roses—the softy loves gifts of romantic red roses from his wife or daughters
• Yellow roses—yellow is the color of friendship, and the yellow rose is a symbol of strength
• Alstroemeria—this flower is a bit on the rare side, but is perfect for men and stands for devotion
• Bamboo—in Asia, a gift of bamboo is a way of telling someone “Good luck”

Gift Delivery for the Gardener

It may seem like the gardener would be the easiest type of man to find the perfect floral gift delivery for, but this isn’t necessarily true. Men who garden take a very masculine approach to this normally sedate hobby, running their gardens with the iron fist of a third-world dictator. Men who garden are more likely to plan their garden to within an inch of its life, and won’t be likely to add anything to their garden or display of flowers without thinking about it and planning for months ahead of time. That makes a spontaneous flower or plant gift hard to swallow.

Still, a little bit of planning and a little bit of cash and you can find a wonderful floral gift delivery idea for a male gardener. Here are some ideas on what to buy the gardener that won’t put a burden on him to put your gift in his precious gardening real estate right away.

To relieve the gardener of the burden of having to put your gift in his garden, present him one of the following masculine plants and flowers in a nice pot. Some of them can be kept inside, some outside, but none of them will encroach on his gardening space, and they’re all wonderful plants for gardeners who like to get their hands a little dirty.

• Bonsai–many plants can be turned into bonsai, including cryptomeria. Gardeners will love the amount of care that bonsai require, and a bonsai in a pot is an automatic conversation starter
• Money Tree (pachira aquatica)–the cultivation and care of this plant, usually three stems braided into one, comes from Feng Shui and is thought to attract money and good fortune.
• Ponytail Palm–like a bonsai palm tree, the ponytail palm is a great conversation piece and a nice addition to a tropical or island garden
• Bromeliads–these tough and long-lived plants are great filler for deck gardens and require little care. This is a good “go to” gift for the male gardener if you’re unsure what else to give him

Gift Delivery for the Collector

Like men who garden, men who collect do it very aggressively. Most of the time, a man’s collection is less about the beauty and meaning of the individual items in his collection, and more about the size of the collection and its monetary value. Thankfully, that makes floral gift delivery for the collector an easy task. Men who prize rare things–be it 21 year old single male Scotch whisky or postage stamps–offer the floral gift giver lots of options.

• Orchids–There are more orchids on Earth than any other type of plant. Some of them are so rare that they can only be found in the most dense jungles and swamps. A gift of a rare orchid will put a smile on any collector’s face.
• Bleeding heart plant–This rare tropical plant grows flowers that look like, well, bleeding hearts.
• Caper plant–Capparis sandwichiana is a very delicate species of flower that grows around coastal areas in the Hawaiian Islands. Related to the plant that produces the capers we eat, the Caper plant’s flower is rare and not very hardy. A true challenge for a flower collector.
• Voodoo Lily–Sometimes called the Corpse Flower, the Voodoo Lily is a smelly and strange-looking plant that only blooms once every few years. A true rarity and a great addition to any collector’s home.