Mother's Day in San Francisco

Mother's Day in San Francisco: her bouquet in the May rose rush

Mother's Day in San Francisco falls on the second Sunday of May, one of two peaks that together bring in about half the roses the United States imports in a year. California grows roughly 70% of the country's own cut flowers, yet close to four-fifths of what the market sells is still flown in from abroad. Demand for roses runs highest in that week, so it helps to settle on a flower and a format first, then book the delivery a few days ahead.

Red, pink or opened by hand: choosing roses for her

Call it a "French rose" and people assume a variety, but it is really something a florist does by hand. The outer petals get folded back so each bloom opens wider than it would on its own, as with 11 Red French Roses. Colour carries its own history here. By the 1920s, in the years after the first Mother's Day, Americans wore a red carnation for a mother still living and a white one for a mother no longer here. That same red-for-living note has stayed with red and pink roses ever since. Victorian flower dictionaries read a pink rose as a gentler statement than a passionate red, though no single list of meanings ever held across them all. Families keeping Chinese custom, including many in Chinatown, set white flowers and yellow chrysanthemums aside for mourning rather than gifts, so red and pink stay the safer choice. For a softer bouquet that still leans pink, Roses with Lisianthus is worth a look, and the full range of roses runs from single stems to armfuls.

Lilies, gerbera and hydrangea, a month before the dahlias

San Francisco's official flower is the dahlia, named so in 1926, and the dahlias in Golden Gate Park's Dahlia Dell do not open until June, building to their peak in late August and September. By the second Sunday of May they are weeks away, which is why the catalogue carries none. Lilies and gerberas are greenhouse flowers grown year-round, so florists build the May bouquet around them, pairing lilies or gerbera with hydrangea and a few roses for weight and colour. One caution matters if her home has a cat: a lily is poisonous in every part, including the pollen and the vase water, so hydrangea, gerbera or roses are the safer choice. Once a lily opens, florists remove its pollen by hand, since it marks fabric on contact.

When she has no spare vase: a box, a basket or a pot

A box needs nothing from whoever opens it: it goes straight on the table, no vase to hunt down. Its shape is borrowed from the hat boxes it is named after, as with Designer Box No. 1 among the flowers in boxes. A flower basket works the same way: its stems sit in soaked foam rather than water, so the foam is watered daily across its whole surface and the basket is never tilted. A potted plant is the option that outlasts the week itself, a gift that keeps going once the cut flowers are long gone. If she is spending the day in hospital or checked into a hotel, the handover follows that place's own rules, covered on the hotels and hospital wards page.

Booking ahead of San Francisco's Mother's Day crunch

Mother's Day shares a line on the delivery page with 14 February and 8 March, the year's three heaviest days for courier bookings. Orders climb to several times an ordinary Sunday's volume, delivery windows run wider than usual, and nobody can promise an exact minute that week. Ordering several days out, instead of waiting until the night before, leaves more good time slots to choose from. Any zone still allows a date and a window to be set in advance, and the sooner that booking goes in, the wider the choice that remains. Whatever you would like to say goes on a card at no extra cost, and a photo of the finished bouquet reaches you before it leaves for delivery. Only the recipient's phone number is needed if the exact address is awkward to give.

Choosing Mother's Day flowers in San Francisco usually starts with the rose and the room. Red or pink work for the card, a box or a basket for a home with no vase to spare. A balloon or a small gift tucked in beside the bouquet suits a mother who has flowers covered, and the delivery terms page sets out the days-ahead booking and the card options before you pay.