Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, birthdays - or maybe just to tell someone you care - a bunch of flowers is one way to bring a smile to their face. But how well do all the supermarkets care for their flowers? When buying a nice bouquet, you want them to look and smell lovely, as well as last for a good few days.
I bought a bunch of tulips from Waitrose, Aldi, M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco to compare them. One bouquet was £10 - while the cheapest was £3.69. But do you really get what you pay for?
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Tulip bulbs are pretty emblematic of spring and all major supermarkets have stocked up with the multicoloured flowers, each bunch promising at least five days of freshness. However this was not actually the case, and I was left disappointed with one supermarket's offering.
The Waitrose bunch of flowers cost £10, the M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco cost £5 and the Aldi bunch of tulips cost £3.69. I put them all into a vase and placed them in the same location, under a skylight for five days with a shallow amount of water each, as that amount supposedly helps tulips to survive better.
Here is what I thought of each bunch...
Tesco
Rainbow Tulips Bunch, £5
Tesco's bunch of rainbow tulips cost £5 and stood taller than any of the other stems, so would be the best for tall vases. The tulips were bright yellow, purple and red as well as a few with a pretty red to yellow gradient going upwards.
The bunch was also pretty thick, which is sometimes lost on taller stemmed flowers. After five days, the stems had held their shapes and none of the flowers had drooped so I was impressed.
9/10
Waitrose
Sorbet Tulip Bouquet, £10
The Waitrose website claims, “Our beautiful British tulips are handpicked at the perfect stage so that you can enjoy them for longer”. For £10, this was probably the biggest bunch I bought, which at the time I thought justified the extra £5.
The bunch had a lovely assortment of pastel coloured tulips. They also came with a five day guarantee but half the stems had completely dropped over by the time those five days were up.
I even checked the vase to make sure I had not forgotten to put water in, or if the tulips had already drained the water in the vase but it was still about a third full. Although probably the most aesthetic bunch of flowers I bought, they only looked good for a day, which I honestly thought was awful for the price.
1/10
Aldi
Rainbow Bumper Tulips, £3.69
Aldi’s tulips promised big things for a low price - it was the only supermarket to list exactly how many stems are included, that being 14, and also had a seven day guarantee. Every other supermarket flowers only had a five day guarantee.
Read more:
The bumper bunch had bright and fresh colours, including purple, red, white and yellow and were the least open of all the flowers I bought. These are the best flowers to get if you want them to last more than a few days.
9/10
Sainsbury’s
Rainbow Tulips, £5
The Sainsbury’s bunch of tulips came with 14 stems as well and had red, yellow, purple and red flowers
Looking at the Sainsbury’s website, there should have been a much wider range of colours included in the bunch including burgundy, cerise, pink and lilac which were nowhere to be seen, but the flowers were attractive nonetheless.
Although a bit thin, lacking the amount of leaves as the other bunches, the Sainsbury’s tulips were perfectly reasonable for £5 at first. However they went dry very quickly and I was left with a scraggly, disappointing bunch.
4/10
M&S
Rainbow Tulips, £5
I was happy to find a bunch of flowers from M&S for as little as £5; I would usually expect to pay a lot more for its flowers. The bunch did seem quite thin, especially compared to the Tesco bunch which stood tall and spread out, and I would have like to see some white flowers in there to balance out the bright reds, purples and yellows.
The flowers were pretty, but did not live up to the other bunches for my taste.
6/10
Overall Verdict
Aldi 9/10
Tesco 9/10
M&S 6/10
Sainsbury's 4/10
Waitrose 1/10
Overall, although I thought the Tesco flowers looked the nicest, I think the Aldi tulips are best value for money. For the slightly cheaper price of £3.69 you also get a longer guarantee on the flowers.
With tulips not having the longest shelf life anyway, you want to look for the longest guarantee possible and Aldi provides that. Stay up to date with the latest what's on news with our Daily What's On Email updates .
