A 'crazy week' for flower growers and florists alike
May 10—It's never too late to buy flowers for mom. But if you're looking for cut flowers grown locally to delight her on Mother's Day, you're most likely out of luck.
"Cut flowers are typically not grown in the United States," said Susan Provonost, executive director of the Connecticut Greenhouse Growers Association.
Most cut flowers this time of year come from Central and South America as well as Europe, which can leave a large carbon footprint. So if you are looking to buy locally grown plants for mom, your best bet is to look for perennials such as asters and anemones or flowering annuals such as petunias and geraniums, the latter often arranged together in hanging baskets.
You could also consider buying a tree or plant grown in local greenhouses, several of which are represented among the 200 farms in the private, nonprofit association headed by Provonost. Top picks among flowering shrubs would include azalea bushes and hydrangea.
"Plant a tree or shrub in her honor," Provonost said. "It will be there a long time and add to the environment. You also can't go wrong with something perennial."
Another possibility is to check out Connecticut flower farms where you can pick your own individual floral display.
Jeroen Koeman, who runs Preston-based Wicked Tulips with wife Kerriann, offers a delightful option for families wanting to take mom on a flower-oriented adventure. For a $10 entrance fee, the pick-your-own operation provides all the tools you will need to unearth 10 of their unusual tulip bulbs, with a $1 fee for each additional flower that you take away.
"Mother's Day weekend is looking gorgeous," Koeman said in a phone interview. "It's beautiful to see all the happy moms, making it a special day."
Last year, because of unusual 80-degree days in the spring, Wicked Tulips had to close before Mother's Day, but this year more than 30 varieties of multiple colors will be available, including the very tall French variant.
"We have florists coming out to cut their own flowers at our farm," Koeman said.
He said the farm may be open a few days after Mother's Day, but this will be its final weekend.
Charlotte Hennegan, who runs Thames River Greenery in New London, said she gets most of her hanging baskets and many cut flowers from Jewett City Greenhouses. This time of the year, their cut flowers include snapdragons and calla lilies, not exactly the traditional roses but beautiful nonetheless.
"I like to support local," Hennegan said. "There's a freshness to it that is unparalleled."
And she likes the idea that the flowers don't spend hours on a plane before they arrive in the United States, past their prime.
Louis Demicco, who helps run Jewett City Florist & Greenhouse with his family, said Mother's Day weekend is a huge time for his wholesale and retail business as both plants and flowers move as soon as the sun peeks out for a few days. The Demiccos have about an acre of plants growing in eight- to 12-week cycles in its greenhouses.
"They're all flying out of here," he said Thursday. "The whole week's just a busy week, a crazy week."
Normally, the weeks leading up to Mother's Day are quite busy as well, but this year, he said, "It's been so cold no one wanted to plant anything."
At Smith's Acres in Niantic, the flowers growing on its 35 acres of farmland are not ready for Mother's Day.
"So anything that we do for cut flowers is something that we buy from a wholesale florist and then we arrange ourselves," said Kristen Maskell, whose mom, Teri Smith, owns the business. "We do sell a lot of bouquets, but more than anything else we sell a lot of potted plants and a lot of hanging baskets."
She recommends the hanging baskets because of their longevity compared with cut flowers.
"It's going to give you a whole season worth of joy over a cut flower," Maskell said.
Smith said she still likes to have some cut flowers for customers "because there are some people that ...live in an apartment house and (if) you're going to go visit grandma, she might not have a place to put a hanging basket."
As for Mother's Day, "It's our single busiest day of the year," Maskell said, depending on the weather. "It's our most lucrative weekend of the year."
And for those who crave those locally grown cut flowers, Smith's Acres promises they will be offered at its store starting in July.
As for the types of flowers that can be found in Connecticut, Provonost, the Connecticut Greenhouse Growers Association leader, said "We have the color wheel. ... All colors under the sun are represented in our plants."
And while Mother's Day is one of the growers' busiest times, for many farms it's a year-round business, with Christmas poinsettias available starting in June and fall mums another major seller. Most of the local roadside farmstands, she said, get their flowers from Connecticut growers.
"We supply farmers that don't have the greenhouse space," Provonost said.
Connecticut growers also provide flowers for big box stores from Maine to Oregon.
"This is a huge export business in the state of Connecticut that goes unsung," Provonost said.
