Flower shops in Forest Hills, NY

Getting your bearings before you call

Forest Hills sits in the middle of Queens, a neighborhood built around a handful of walkable commercial strips rather than one single main street. Queens Boulevard cuts through the area as the wide, busy spine that most delivery drivers use to get from one side of the neighborhood to the other, while Metropolitan Avenue and Austin Street carry the smaller, slower local traffic past shops, cafes, and apartment buildings. Forest Hills Gardens, the planned enclave of Tudor style homes near the Long Island Rail Road station, is its own small world of curving streets and no through traffic, which matters if a driver has never delivered there before. The area around Station Square and the old Forest Hills Inn is often used as a general reference point when giving directions to a courier who does not know the neighborhood by heart.

Most of Forest Hills is a mix of co-op buildings, prewar apartment houses, and single family blocks, so callers should be ready to give a buzzer code, a doorman's name, or a specific building entrance rather than just a street number. Deliveries to the high rises along Queens Boulevard or the courtyard buildings off Continental Avenue tend to go faster when the sender mentions the building name up front. Forest Hills High School anchors the western end of the neighborhood and sees a steady flow of flowers around graduation season. Forest Hills Hospital, part of the Northwell Health system, serves the immediate area and is a common delivery destination for patients and new families, so callers sending to a hospital room should have the wing or floor ready if they know it.

What the local shops actually do

Three florists operate directly in Forest Hills. Danas Flower Shop, on Queens Boulevard, is a florist open six days a week. Forest Hills Lilies of the Valley, on Metropolitan Avenue, is a florist that also handles flower delivery and flower design work, and it too is open six days a week. Studio Arts Florist, on 71st Avenue, is a florist open all seven days. Between them, callers have a choice of a shop open every day of the week along with two others that cover six days, which gives most last minute senders at least one option regardless of which day they are calling on. None of these shops are being compared here on quality or service, only on what kind of business they run and how often their doors are open, since that is what actually affects whether a same-day order is possible.

Because each of these three shops sits within a short walk or drive of the others, a caller who strikes out with one number has two more nearby to try before needing to look outside the neighborhood entirely. That density is part of what makes Forest Hills a fairly easy place to arrange local delivery compared to smaller Queens neighborhoods that might have only one shop in town.

Seasonal flowers and what they tend to cost

Flower pricing in Forest Hills follows the same general seasonal rhythm as the rest of the Northeast, with local supply and holiday demand pushing prices up and down through the year. In January and February, tulips and other early bulb flowers start showing up, and a simple arrangement often runs somewhere between thirty five and sixty dollars, climbing toward the higher end or beyond it right around Valentine's Day when roses spike in price. March and April bring more variety as spring flowers like ranunculus, daffodils, and hyacinth become available, with everyday bouquets generally in the forty to seventy dollar range depending on size.

May is Mother's Day territory, and shops usually charge more for their premium arrangements during that stretch, with mixed spring bouquets and potted plants running anywhere from fifty to ninety dollars or more. Summer months, June through August, tend to bring in peonies early on and then sunflowers, dahlias, and garden roses as the season goes on, with typical orders in the forty five to seventy five dollar range outside of wedding season markups. Fall brings chrysanthemums and other hardy blooms along with a jump around the Jewish holidays in September and October, which matter a great deal in a neighborhood with as large a Jewish population as Forest Hills has. Late November through December sees poinsettias, amaryllis, and holiday centerpieces, with prices for the busiest weeks before Christmas and New Year's often landing between fifty and one hundred dollars for a nicer arrangement.

Occasions that keep the phones ringing

Forest Hills shops stay busy with the same national holidays every florist deals with, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and the winter holiday stretch chief among them, but the neighborhood has its own rhythm layered on top. The Jewish High Holidays in early fall bring a wave of orders for home entertaining and hostess gifts, and Passover in spring does something similar. Graduation season at Forest Hills High School each June brings a burst of smaller bouquet and corsage orders. Sympathy work is a steady presence throughout the year given the number of longtime residents and older co-op buildings in the area, and the funeral homes that serve those families keep local florists in regular contact for service arrangements. Weddings held at venues throughout Queens and the surrounding boroughs also send business toward Forest Hills shops, particularly ones that describe themselves as flower designers rather than simple order takers.

How to make the call

Calling ahead works better than trying to walk in cold, especially for anything more detailed than a grab and go bouquet. It helps to know the recipient's exact address including apartment or unit number, the day and rough time window needed, and a budget range rather than a single fixed number, since that gives the person answering the phone room to suggest what looks good that day. Mentioning the occasion, whether it is a birthday, a hospital visit, or a sympathy delivery, helps the florist choose appropriate flowers and containers without a long back and forth.

Same-day delivery is realistic in Forest Hills more often than not, particularly if the call comes in during the morning or early afternoon, since all three neighborhood shops are open most days of the week and the delivery area is compact. Calling right before closing time or on the one day a shop is closed will obviously limit the options, which is another reason it helps to have more than one phone number in hand before starting to call around. A few things worth having ready before dialing:

• Recipient's full address, including buzzer code or doorman instructions if the building has them
• A rough budget range instead of an exact dollar figure
• The occasion and any color or flower preferences, or a note that the florist should use their judgment
• A callback number in case the delivery address needs confirming

When a neighboring town's florist makes more sense

Forest Hills is bordered by several other Queens neighborhoods that each have their own florists, and sometimes one of those shops is simply closer to the actual delivery address than anything in Forest Hills proper. Rego Park sits just to the west and shares Queens Boulevard, so a delivery near that border might be faster from a Rego Park shop depending on exactly where the address falls. Kew Gardens and Richmond Hill lie to the south and east, Briarwood is just beyond that, and Woodhaven and South Richmond Hill sit further south still. Middle Village is to the north. For an address that is genuinely closer to one of those neighborhoods than to central Forest Hills, it is worth checking whether a florist based there might get there faster, since delivery time usually comes down to actual distance rather than which neighborhood name is on the shop's sign.

Hospitals, funeral homes, and schools nearby

Forest Hills Hospital is the main hospital destination in the immediate area, and florists delivering there are generally used to hospital procedures around visiting hours and front desk drop offs. The neighborhood's funeral homes handle a steady stream of services throughout the year, and local florists are typically familiar with standard service arrangement sizing and delivery timing for those events. Forest Hills High School is the primary school landmark in the neighborhood and tends to generate seasonal spikes in orders around graduation and other school events, while the many co-op and condo buildings scattered throughout the area each have their own delivery quirks that a local shop is more likely to already know.

A final practical note on timing

Weather and traffic on Queens Boulevard can slow down deliveries during rush hour, so building in a little extra time for anything needed by a specific hour is a reasonable habit. Holidays that fall on weekdays, particularly Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, tend to compress the available delivery windows even for shops open every day, simply because order volume is so much higher than usual. Calling a day ahead when the date is known in advance, rather than waiting until the morning of, generally gives a Forest Hills florist more room to plan the route and get the order exactly right.