Set #10280-1: Flower Bouquet is the first in the Botanical Collection from the 18+ line. It’s been a hit since it was released in the US on 2 January 2021 and was out of stock for quite a while. If you aren’t familiar with this set, you should start with the designer video here. The set contains 756 pieces and retails in the US for $49.99. That works out to $0.066 per piece which isn’t too bad. Recently Amazon.com and Walmart had the set on sale for 20% off so I reached in and bought one on sale.
Onto the review… The box is a reasonable size, but isn’t super huge like a Modular Building. It is black and has sand green branding for 18+. The front shows the full set while the back breaks out the set a bit so you can see the details. It also shows the height of the flowers and what it looks like in a vase. Note that the set does not come with a buildable vase so you either need to provide your own or build one.
The set contains six parts bags and an instruction booklet which is sealed in a bag. Five of the bags are numbered with one through three. One is made up of some of the stems and larger leaves.
The instruction booklet does have some information on the set designers as well as details throughout about parts used and other details. Most of these details weren’t useful to me as a regular builder, but I could see them being fun for new builders.
The first two bags labeled number one build two daisies and three roses. The daisies are the smallest of the flowers in the build, but they still get a point across that they are daisies. Besides the stem, they are probably the easiest to duplicate and get pieces for.
The roses are some of my favorites in this set. There are three and I like the color. I’m glad they didn’t just go with a standard red rose. The roses can also be posed so that they are either more or less open as the petals are on hinges. One of the roses is straight up while two are built with an angled stem at the top. Each rose has a leaf which looks like it was a wing from a dinosaur on one of the Jurassic Park sets.
The second set of bags builds three more flowers and some greenery. First up is a California Poppy. The orange color on this one really pops out which is cool. Other than the stem, the flower parts are fairly common so you could probably build this one in other colors as it is a pretty simple build.
Next up are two green plants. I don’t know my way around a florist other than I have frequented numerous florists to purchase the real things for my NLS. And no, those purchases weren’t meant to appease any of my LEGO purchases. This one is pretty simple to put together and it uses two green bush like pieces that I haven’t seen since… maybe a Pirates set back in the day? It’s been a while, but cool to see them back in use. The green plants help to mix up the bouquet so it’s not just flowers.
Lastly, you build two snap dragon flowers. These are cool in real life and I enjoyed the brick built versions. One is pointed straight up and the other has an angle at the top of the stem. Both of these have two leaves which also appear to be from some dinosaur part (maybe). The color choice on the snap dragons is great and I like how the top is pink and then it gets darker at the bottom.
Bag three finishes up the set with lavender, three pieces of greenery, and an aster flower. The lavender is built first. I’ve had a lavender plant in the past at a house I once lived at and I’m not sure this flower matches the plant I had. Maybe it’s a different kind? The one we had didn’t have the brown on the flowers. It was mostly green with the small purple flowers. Not a big deal… I like the use of the crown and a golden leaf by each flower. I’m sure they’ll be used in future MOCs coming soon by various builders.
Next up are three more types of greenery. These are just giant leaves which have a pivot point so you can bend them as desired. The very tip is a sand green surf board which is a pretty cool piece. Not much to these when you build them, but it helps to mix up the bouquet.
Last is the aster flower. The color on this one is great, but the build was a bit of a challenge. It was hard to tell which way you attached the clips and how you lined them all up. In the end, I don’t think it matters too much and our aster flower looks great.
Here’s the final set. No, it does not come with a vase. My NLS went through multiple vases before picking the one we did. Then we had to adjust them so they were just so. Thankfully, you can adjust the height of each plant by adding or removing Technic pieces. This allows you to position the flowers so they meet your own intent which is a cool feature.
My NLS thought this set was great. Not only did she help build it, but it now has a prominent place in our house unlike the rest of the sets I build that are either tucked away (or displayed too high up for her to reach). I’ll take it as a win! She’s excited that she doesn’t have to water them and won’t kill them. Just need to get some canned air to dust them off every now and then.
Overall, I really liked this one. It was good to see LEGO break away from some of the traditional builds and do something like flowers. Haven’t decided whether we’ll get into any of the other plants or not. The price on this one is decent and the 20% off sale definitely helped entice me to purchase. Well done LEGO!
Happy building!
