Count the heads, not the length
Two garlands can both be five feet long and look completely different on a door. What changes is how many flower heads are strung along that length. A dense garland carries a head every three to four centimetres; a thin one leaves gaps you can see through from across the room. The listing should tell you both figures — length and head count — and if it only gives length, assume the gaps.
Stem construction
Fabric marigold heads are threaded onto either a cotton cord or a thin wire spine. Cord drapes softly and is the right choice over a doorway or a bed head. Wire holds a shape, which is what you want when the garland has to arch across a wall or wrap a pillar without sagging. Neither is better; they are different jobs, and a wire garland forced into a soft drape looks stiff and wrong.
Why packing matters more than it sounds
A pressed garland arrives with the heads flattened on one side and the stems bent into each other. Fabric heads recover if you fluff them by hand, but a bent wire spine never hangs straight again. We ship garlands flat between boards for exactly this reason — the shape a garland arrives in is a packing decision, not a manufacturing one.
Colour across batches
Dyed fabric varies slightly between production runs, so two garlands bought a season apart may not match exactly. If you are building a long run across a wall, order what you need in one go rather than topping up later.