Flower sales flourish for Mother’s Day. Garden centres and jewellery outlets can also count on additional attention.
But flowers are the thing this 8th May. Mother’s Day is the second-biggest fresh-flower buying occasion in North America after Valentine’s Day. Growers from near and far are grateful. Truckloads arrive at the Ontario Flower Growers daily auctions at ‘The Clock’ in Mississauga on the outskirts of Toronto. Giant jets touch down at airports across the country from such locations as the Netherlands, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
By next year even far-off Taiwan will be joining the action. Last month, the Taiwan Floriculture Development Association and the Landscape Ontario Horticultural Trades Association signed a three-year deal to strengthen commercial ties in the field and exchange market information and technology.
Make no mistake: the ladies love receiving them. A study by the Society of American Florists looked at what people most appreciate about flowers. For more than half (56 per cent), flowers were an emotional gift that made them feel special. The sight and smell improved their mood, said a full 60 per cent. Interestingly, Japanese research published two years ago indicated that particular scents could alter gene activity and blood chemistry to decrease stress levels.
The trade publication Canadian Florist has even urged its readers to “let your customers know about Vitamin F – flowers!”
But which flowers to choose? Among the most popular roses and carnations. In fact they are one of Colombia’s biggest exports to Canada (along with coffee, bananas and sugar). A single Colombian rose grower will be dispatching 300,000 blooms a day in the run up to 8th May. Expect to pay top dollar for roses, whatever their source, especially if they are red – if you can find any. Placing an order days in advance might seem common sense but the lineups at florist departments of supermarkets demonstrate otherwise.
Over the past few years, carnations have justifiably been regaining their former popularity. Last October, an article in the Wall Street Journal, ‘What in Carnation?’ by Lettie Teague, forecast the carnation’s return to fame. Unfortunately the delicious fragrance is sadly reduced if not outright absent. But then the same criticism might be applied to that ne plus ultra of the florists’ world, the rose. As a Roman once bewailed, O tempora, O mores!
Another surprise is how few of the recipients seem to suitable vases for their gift. Any florist worth their weight in floral preservative will carry a reasonable selection – and it needn’t be Ming porcelain. And yes that could be a final touch: a small package of cut flower preservative enclosed with the bouquet. Any gift of cut flowers represents a race against inevitable death but it may be delayed. The Monday following Mother’s Day Sunday needn’t see send ups to that great green compost heap in the sky.
But let that wonderful versifier, the late Ogden Nash bring us back to earth with his wit when he observed:
Oh, Mother’s Day is a very fine day,
And not alone for mothers.
The florist finds it to his taste,
And so do a lot of others . . .
Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.
