Fleuriste Pourquoi pas fleurs

The situation is simple: you need flowers today, in Montreal, and you cannot afford to get it wrong. Pourquoi pas fleurs has held the same shop in the lower Plateau-Mont-Royal since 1993 and works the way very few still do: its own florists build the bouquet the morning it goes out, and its own drivers carry it. No third-party couriers, no overnight storage — that is the shop’s own wording.

What occasions this shop is for

The bulk of the order book is date-driven: birthdays, couples’ anniversaries, a new baby, graduation, retirement, a housewarming, a proposal. The shop does not stop at the catalogue — you can arrive with the occasion, a colour palette and a description of the person, and have the arrangement built to that. Here it is the normal way to order rather than a special favour, and the shop says so itself.

The second strand is corporate and hospital work: flowers to an office, a business opening, and above all deliveries into the city’s major health centres — the CHUM, the Jewish General, the children’s CHU Sainte-Justine — each with its own page on the shop’s site. Every hospital has its own rules for accepting deliveries, and a florist who already knows them saves you a phone call. Weddings are handled separately, by consultation. Sympathy and funeral arrangements are part of the regular workload too.

Delivery and how fast

This is where the shop is strongest, and the rule is easy to hold in your head: order before 4pm Monday to Saturday, or before 3pm on Sunday, and it goes out the same day. Sunday deserves its own line — a great many Montreal florists simply do not run that day, and Sunday is precisely when people remember what they forgot.

Coverage takes in the whole island — downtown, the Plateau, Outremont, Rosemont, Villeray, Verdun, NDG, Griffintown — plus Westmount, Town of Mount Royal, Laval, the West Island towards Pointe-Claire, Dollard-des-Ormeaux and Kirkland, and the South Shore towards Longueuil, Brossard and Saint-Lambert. Deliveries can be scheduled up to two months ahead.

In January, in-house delivery stops being a marketing line: in deep cold, flowers left for a while in an unheated vehicle do not arrive in the state they left in. In-store pickup is available as well.

What stands out

• Thirty years in one place. Open since 1993, it has outlasted every passing Montreal bouquet fashion without moving.
• Own florists, own drivers. The bouquet is built in the shop’s workshop and carried by the shop’s team, not subcontracted.
• A late ordering cutoff. A mid-afternoon deadline leaves real room for anyone who only realized that morning.
• Sunday is a delivery day. Rare in this trade, and decisive on a long weekend.
• Custom work is the standard service. Describing the recipient gets you further here than pointing at a catalogue photo.
• Recognized by Cult MTL readers. The city’s Best of MTL poll places it among Montreal’s best florists.

Where the flowers come from

The shop does not publish its suppliers: it goes no further than seasonal flowers, selected and arranged on the same day they are delivered, with no auctions or farms named.

The shop, the service and what else they sell

This is a real store with a workshop behind the counter, not a pickup point: you walk in, describe what you are after, and the staff take the choice from there — customers regularly report leaving with something quite different from what they came for, and better. Service is fully bilingual, French and English, website included, which matters when you are ordering from outside Quebec for someone who lives here. Beyond bouquets the plant range is short: orchids in ceramic pots, a gift that outlasts cut stems and suits an office or a hospital room better.

When to come and how to get there

The Montreal calendar runs everything: Valentine’s Day in the depth of winter, Mother’s Day, the single biggest day of the year for any florist, a wedding season compressed into May through September because the climate allows nothing else, the back-to-school week, then the holidays. For those dates, ordering a week ahead changes everything; the rest of the year, the same day is enough.

The shop sits in the lower Plateau-Mont-Royal, on the seam between downtown and the Portuguese quarter, on the artery that climbs towards Mile End. Sherbrooke or Saint-Laurent metro depending on where you are coming from, and the bus that runs up the artery stops close by.

Questions and answers

Can I get delivery today?

Yes, if you order before 4pm Monday to Saturday or before 3pm on Sunday; the shop notes that availability can vary by destination and peak periods.

Do they deliver on Sundays?

They do, with a slightly earlier cutoff — one of the few Montreal florists that keeps Sunday running.

How far does delivery reach?

The whole island of Montreal, plus Westmount, Town of Mount Royal, Laval, the West Island and the South Shore; a postal-code checker on the site settles borderline addresses.

How far ahead should I order for Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day?

A week is comfortable; those two dates fill every florist’s schedule in the city at once.

Can they make something that is not in the catalogue?

Yes — arrangements are built to your preferences, colours or occasion, and calling to describe works better than hunting for a similar photo.

Do they do weddings?

Yes, by consultation, and as everywhere in Montreal the summer season books a long way out.

What about sympathy flowers or a delivery to a funeral home?

That is ordinary work for the shop; phoning is the fastest route, because the time of the service dictates everything else.

Can I pick the order up myself?

Yes, in-store pickup is offered.

Opening hours