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Mother's Day in London: choosing flowers that have travelled for her
About nine in ten cut flowers sold in Britain are imported, chiefly from the Netherlands, with Kenya supplying most of the roses. Mother's Day in London runs largely on flowers brought in from abroad, and the roses usually arrive by air. Mothering Sunday falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent, in March or the first days of April, when British fields have little to offer, so the choice for mum rests on flowers grown elsewhere.
Zone and price details for delivery sit on the zones and delivery terms page. Hotel receptions, hospital wards, ordering from outside the UK and keeping blooms away from a radiator are covered on the hotels, wards, ordering from abroad and flowers in a heated flat page.
Lilies, hydrangea and imported roses for a March bouquet
Lilies, gerbera and lisianthus are greenhouse flowers, grown under glass all year, so they anchor a March bouquet whatever the weather outside. Hydrangea joins them for volume, its big domed heads filling out an arrangement that single stems alone would leave thin. Roses complete the three: almost every rose sold in London has arrived by plane, more than a third of imported stems landing through Heathrow, and of those roughly six in ten are grown in Kenya.
A British peony is out of reach this early: home-grown stems are cut from late April into June, well after Mothering Sunday has passed. Between February and April the florist brings peonies in from Israel, Italy and France instead, so a mother who specifically wants peonies can still have them, just not a British one.
Pink rather than passion: picking a rose for your mother
Red carries passion in the old language of flowers, pink reads as a gentler, more settled affection, and white stands for purity, though the books on the subject rarely agree with each other. For a mother, that points the choice towards pink or white rather than red, which still suits a partner better than a parent.
A French rose is not a variety but a technique: the florist opens the outer petals back by hand so the flower looks fuller and already in bloom. Where red is what she wants, the bouquet called 11 Red French Roses is built this way. Jumilia is a paler option, with a bud up to seven centimetres across, a white base shading into a pink edge, and with good care it holds in a vase for up to a fortnight. Unlike in some countries, nobody in Britain minds whether the stem count is odd or even. The full range of roses runs through every shade mentioned here.
Her Cornish daffodils and your bouquet: two vases, not one
Cornwall picks its daffodils from January into April, and the two biggest markets for them are Mothering Sunday and Easter. A bunch from a supermarket or a street stall may well already be on her table. That is no reason to mix the two: daffodil sap clogs the stems of other flowers and feeds the bacteria that shorten their life.
Keep daffodils in their own water for about a day before they go anywhere near the bouquet; a fresh cut would let out more sap. After that day apart, they can stand beside the roses with no more trouble and without another trim.
A posy for her hands or a box for her table
On the original Mothering Sunday, children walking home gathered violets from the hedgerows for their mothers, and in towns the local church handed the flowers out at the door. A small bunch carried in the hand goes back to that habit. A hand-tied bouquet still works that way, wrapped to be held rather than set down, while a hat box or a basket needs no vase, because the stems sit in soaked foam already.
That foam needs watering every day, a thin stream over its whole surface rather than a single pour in one spot. A balloon makes a cheerful extra rather than the main gift. A latex one stays afloat for about half a day, a foil one for several days, and both the Helium Balloon "To My Beloved Mom" and the Heart Foil Balloon suit the occasion. A card with your own words goes in free with any order.
Mothering Sunday brings in far more orders than an ordinary weekend, so delivery windows run wider and nobody can promise the exact minute; booking a few days ahead gives more choice of slot. A date and time can still be set for any zone, delivery in central London costs nothing, and the florist photographs the finished bouquet before the courier sets off.
The easiest place to start choosing flowers for Mother's Day in London is the bouquet itself, carried in the hand or sent as a box or a basket that needs no vase. Flowers in boxes suit a table that already has too much standing on it, and flower baskets work the same way without a lid. A few gifts to go with the bouquet can turn either one into something larger.