Mother’s Day flower sales in bloom By Andy Gross – The Garden Island LIHU‘E — Business is blooming in anticipation of Mother’s Day. Local florists are filling orders and figuring out delivery plans. “Orders are coming in for flower deliveries
Mother’s Day flower sales in bloom
By Andy Gross – The Garden Island
LIHU‘E — Business is blooming in anticipation of Mother’s Day.
Local florists are filling orders and figuring out delivery plans.
“Orders are coming in for flower deliveries and a lot of leis,” said the aptly named April Meadows, owner of Flowers and Joy, a relatively new shop.
Meadows acknowledged that Valentine’s Day might be considered the peak of romantic flower-buying, but she added this maternal spin, “as someone once said to me, a lot of people have sweethearts, but everyone has a mother.”
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill designating the second Sunday in May as a legal holiday, to be called Mother’s Day, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
Which turned out to be a good thing for the economy.
Total Mother’s Day spending nationwide is expected to climb to $11.4 billion, up 9 percent from 2004, according to research from the National Retail Federation (NRF).
According to the NRF Mother’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, 50.7 percent of the consumers surveyed said they would buy flowers.
Local florists estimated that Mother’s Day accounted for anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent of their annual business.
Or, on Kaua‘i, flowers and lei.
“Our leis are doing very well,” said Lorna Santos of the People’s Market in Puhi.
At Blue Orchid on Koloa, store employee Alana Ortiz said things were so busy her boss couldn’t come to the phone.
Laureen Ranis, owner of Florescence, which has been in business 30 years, currently in Kalaheo, said Mother’s Day represented “big-time business.”
She said that, unlike Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day often means more than one order per person.
“People buy for mothers, mothers-in-law, grandmothers and aunties,” she said.
“Sales are going pretty well,” said Karey Thompson, co-owner of Petals & Lace. Thompson said that, while Valentine’s Day was a one-shot deal with a lot of volume, Mother’s Day could generate sales days in advance, since many florists are closed Sunday.
While Thompson is relatively new to the Mother’s Day crunch, Lynn Muramoto has been selling exotic orchids for about 10 years.
Family Flower Farms had been open the past week 12 hours a day leading to Mother’s Day, operating under a tented area adjacent to the Kaua‘i Museum.
“This is a special Mother’s Day event,” she said.
Bino Fitzgerald of Hanalei would agree.
Fitzgerald purchased a beautiful, and expensive, orchid, that had been nurtured for 10 years. He said his daughters wanted him to buy the orchid to give to his wife for Mother’s Day.
The orchids come from small family farms, including ones grown by Muramato’s husband, Gerald.
Muramoto said orchids bloom for a long time, and have a calming effect. She described orchids as one of the most “highly evolved plants” in the world.
- Andy Gross, business editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or agross@pulitzer.net.
