Mother’s Day keeps florists busy
With Mother’s Day on Sunday, many are making arrangements to celebrate the special mothers in their lives with flowers, which makes this celebration the busiest time of the year for local florists.
The Herald spoke to Marquis flowers to learn what this holiday is like for them.
Marquis Flowers is one of the oldest - if not the oldest - flower shops in Lethbridge, operating since 1931 and current owner Cindy Howg said they are proud of being able to continue helping residents show their love and appreciation through flowers, especially on Mother’s Day.
Howg said during the week leading up to Mother’s Day they encounter hundreds of requests, with many of them being for “florist choice” flower arrangements.
“We choose the flowers to a certain dollar value and this time of the year is usually something springy and bright flowers, unless someone requests specific flowers, but for most of the time is colourful flowers,” said Howg.
She said they usually include carnations, daisies, lilies, chrysanthemums and other everyday flowers.
Howg said Mother’s Day is usually their busiest time because generally they are getting orders for delivery prebooked throughout the whole week.
“Another reason why we are so busy is because a lot of people celebrate more than one mother, they sometimes send flowers to their mother in-law or a stepmother. Sometimes we have two orders from the same person going to two different locations,” said Howg.
She said some of those locations include residential homes as well as assisted living facilities.
“I usually have my delivery van and some help for two or three days. For those three days we usually have two delivery vans going steadily,” said Howg.
Sharon Ulrich, owner of Flowers on 9th, agrees that Mother’s Day is the busiest week of the year for them, the busiest holiday compared to Valentine’s Day and Christmas.
“We have lots of kids buying flowers for their parents or grandparents, people that might live out of town or just want to bring something to their mom to share that expression,” said Ulrich.
She said now that southern Alberta is finally seeing some sunshine, people are requesting bright colourful flowers in spring colours such as purple, pink and yellow.
“I think we’ve all had enough doom and gloom with dreary weather, so people want spring colours, hydrangea, orchids, tulips, nice bright mixed happy bouquets,” said Ulrich.
She said they are also the busiest during this holiday because people send more flowers to their mothers than anyone else in any other holiday.
“Comparing week to week, a week of Mother’s Day compared to a week of Valentine’s Day, more people are getting flowers for their moms throughout the week, which I think it’s very sweet,” said Ulrich.