Love your Mother (Earth)

• This Mother’s Day we have launched two wrap-free bouquets through Waitrose Florist to help reduce our impact on the environment
• Both the Wrap-Free Rose Bouquet and the Wrap-Free Calla Lily Bouquet have had single-use plastics removed from their packaging and are wrapped in Fatsia leaves*
• We have ranked first two years in a row in Greenpeace's plastic footprint league of UK supermarkets for our progress***

For this Mother’s Day, Waitrose has launched two wrap-free bouquets through Waitrose Florist as part of our commitment to reducing our impact on the environment by reducing waste and eliminating single-use plastic.

Both the Wrap-Free Rose Bouquet (£50) and the Wrap-Free Calla Lily Bouquet (£40) have had all single-use plastics removed from their packaging and instead have been wrapped in a protective layer of Fatsia leaves*. 

The rubber band that would normally hold the stems together has also been removed and replaced with a reusable, natural twine and the flower food also comes in a paper-based sachet which is widely recyclable. 

Zero single-use plastic

Chris Wood, Waitrose Head Florist, said: “We’ve removed the single-use plastic on these two new bouquets and instead, used Fatsia leaves and other foliages such as palm leaves to protect the flowers, rather than cellophane wrap. 

"We’ve seen a growing trend for florals in varying shades of pinks and purples which both of these bouquets feature, and either would make a beautiful gift and lovely surprise for a special someone.”

The Wrap-Free Rose Bouquet is a mix of peach calla lily and cream and apricot premium roses, clematis, peach hypericum berry and lilac limonium, and the Wrap-Free Calla Lily Bouquet is a modern mix of peach calla lily, pink antirrhinum and apricot lisianthus. 

Top marks from Greenpeace two years running 

The packaging on our flowers, both in our shops and Waitrose Florist, is already recyclable and as a business, we are committed to making all our own-brand packaging either widely recycled, reusable or home compostable by 2023**. Through this, we have led the way in reducing plastic packaging across the retail sector and we have ranked first two years in a row in Greenpeace's plastic footprint league of UK supermarkets for our progress***.

Chris Wood’s flower care tips:

1. Clean your vase thoroughly and then fill the vase two-thirds with fresh, lukewarm water and add your flower food. Top up the water the day after receiving your flowers, rather than changing it completely – this way, they benefit from the food for longer
2.  Remove any foliage that will sit below the waterline to avoid the build-up of debris. If your flowers include roses, you may notice some discoloured outer petals. These are guard petals, which protect the inner petals. Gently remove 2-3 guard petals to reveal these
3. Trim about 2-3cm from the bottom of the stems at a 45-degree angle. Try to vary the stem length to give your arrangement a height range
4.  Change the water regularly after the second day. Just like us, flowers love clean water!
5. Keep your flowers out of direct sunlight to prolong their life
6. Remove any wilted flowers. Besides not looking as attractive, they can spread mould onto the others

Both bouquets are available to pre-order via Waitrose Florist now ready for Mother’s Day.