Lit­tle Girl with Ger­ber Daisy

In the Unit­ed States, Mother’s Day is always cel­e­brat­ed on the 2nd Sun­day in May. It is the most pop­u­lar day for greet­ing cards and mak­ing long-dis­tance tele­phone calls and the sec­ond most pop­u­lar day for giv­ing flow­ers (next to Valentine’s Day).

History of Mother’s Day

Moth­er’s Day was first sug­gest­ed in the U.S. in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Bat­tle Hymn of the Repub­lic) as a day ded­i­cat­ed to peace. In 1907, a woman named Anna Jarvis began her cel­e­bra­tion of moth­er­hood by hand­ing out 500 car­na­tions one Sun­day to all the moth­ers in atten­dance at the church in order to hon­or her own mother’s mem­o­ry. She con­tin­ued to cam­paign for the hol­i­day until it was rec­og­nized by Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son in 1914. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, car­na­tions are a sign of admi­ra­tion, love, and respect; so it’s no won­der it’s rec­og­nized as the offi­cial Mother’s Day flower. Feel free to send or make flower arrange­ments with more uncom­mon flow­ers than car­na­tions. Great scent­ed flow­ers in sea­son now are hyacinths, freesia and nar­cis­sus. Col­or­ful and cheer­ful flow­ers include ger­bera daisies and ranun­cu­lus. If your mom is more tra­di­tion­al, she’ll love ros­es and lilies.

Flower Pricing around Mother’s Day

While on Valentine’s Day, we florists see whole­sale prices sky­rock­et and sup­ply plunge for red, pink and pur­ple flow­ers, on Mother’s Day, we see all types of flow­ers go up in price and sup­ply reduced. If you are plan­ning an event around Mother’s Day – like a wed­ding or big par­ty where you will need spe­cif­ic types and col­ors of flow­ers, be sure to place your orders ear­ly from a reli­able ven­dor and expect to pay 2–3 times more that you would dur­ing a nor­mal week. A bet­ter idea is to plan events two weeks before or after Mother’s Day to avoid any flower shortages.

Mother’s Day Flower Ideas

If you are buy­ing flow­ers for Mother’s Day, the best idea is to just get what your Mom loves! If she likes pur­ple calla lilies…get an arrange­ment for her that incor­po­rates them. Here are some love­ly spring flow­ers to help cel­e­brate all the great things moth­ers do for us.