Mother’s Day is Sunday, but California flower farmers have been preparing for this holiday for months. After all, Mother’s Day tops Valentine’s Day as the No. 1 flower-giving holiday, notes Bill Prescott, marketing communications associate for the Sun Valley Floral Farms in Arcata, CA.
“We see that people are excited about giving California Grown Flowers for Mother’s Day because they’re fresher than imports and the stories of our farms resonate with consumers,” Prescott says.
And Mother’s Day 2019 is shaping up to be a great one, according to Dan Vordale, president of Ocean View Flowers in Lompoc, CA. “We basically sell an entire month’s dollar volume in about a 10-day period,” Vordale says. “May 1 was our biggest shipping day of the holiday and we broke our sales record!”
That’s because Ocean View’s stock crop really kicked in despite a heavy rain year; and they’re also shipping large volumes of larkspur, delphinium, hybrid delphinium, sunflower and waxflower, along with fillers like bupleurum, Queen Anne’s lace, orlaya and matricaria, and novelty flowers like boronia, strawflower, veronica, protea and leucadenrons.