Get Well & Hospital Flowers in NYC: What to Send (and What Gets Turned Away)

We deliver to Manhattan hospitals most weeks, and the problem we fix most often is a beautiful arrangement that was never going to make it past the ward door. A few minutes of planning avoids it entirely.

Here is what we have learned delivering to hospitals across the city, and what we would tell a friend before they ordered.

Call the ward before you order

Flower policies are set unit by unit, not hospital by hospital, and they change. Intensive care and coronary care units frequently do not accept flowers at all. Transplant and oncology wards often restrict them too, because patients with suppressed immune systems can be vulnerable to the bacteria and mould that live in flower water and potting soil.

Ring the nurses' station on the floor where the patient actually is. Not the main switchboard, not the website. It takes two minutes and it is the only answer you can rely on. We would far rather you checked first than sent something that gets turned away at the door.

What tends to be restricted

Scent is the usual culprit. Lilies are the classic example: the fragrance carries the length of a corridor and the pollen stains everything it touches. In a small room shared with someone recovering from surgery, heavy perfume is not a kindness. Many units also decline latex balloons because of allergy risk, and potted plants because of the soil.

What actually works in a hospital room

Think small, steady and low-scent. There is very little surface in a hospital room - usually a narrow overbed table already carrying a water jug, a phone and a chart. A tall arrangement simply has nowhere to sit.

Something compact that arrives already in its own vessel is ideal, because nobody on a ward has a spare vase or a spare minute to hunt for one. If you tell us where it is going, we will build it low, unscented and stable - that is exactly what Designer's Choice is for.

Orchids are the strongest choice

If we could send only one thing to a hospital room, it would be a phalaenopsis orchid. They are effectively scentless, they last weeks rather than days, they ask almost nothing of the person receiving them, and they sit happily on a small surface. A Single White Phalaenopsis Orchid travels well and still looks immaculate on the day the patient goes home, which is more than most cut flowers manage. Our full orchid collection runs from a single stem upward.

Sometimes the home is the better address

People are discharged earlier than anyone expects. If the stay is likely to be short, or you are not certain which ward they are on, send to the home instead and time it for the day they get back. It arrives when there is space and quiet to enjoy it, and nothing risks being refused at the door or left behind in the move.

It is also worth remembering whoever is doing the caring. A small arrangement sent to the spouse or parent who has been at the bedside all week often lands harder than anything sent to the patient.

Keep the card short

Thinking of you. Get well soon. That is genuinely enough. A card gets read aloud by whoever is in the room, so keep it warm and light, and resist dwelling on the illness itself. If you want to say more, say it when they are home.

Same-day hospital delivery across Manhattan

We are a studio on the Upper West Side, which puts us close to most of the major Manhattan hospitals. Order by 2pm ET and we deliver the same day across Manhattan. Manhattan delivery is $20; Brooklyn is $25 to $35.

When you order, give us the patient's full name, the ward or unit, and the room number if you have it. Ward deliveries are nearly always handed to the nurses' station rather than carried to the bedside, so a mobile number for the patient or a family member helps if anything needs checking on arrival.

Not sure what suits? Browse our arrangements or call the studio and we will talk it through with you.