The lilac, with its pale purple blooms and gentle scent, has lost its place as a top flowering Mother’s Day gift — to the hanging basket, Victoria nurseries say.
These days, fuchsias, lobelias or geraniums — anything already in bloom — make the hanging basket the most popular gift for mom’s big day.
And nurseries expect to be busy Saturday. The day before Mother’s Day is one of their busiest days of the year.
“[A hanging basket] is an immediate kind of thing,” said Holly Tyler, manager of Art Knapp’s at Mattick’s Farm on Cordova Bay Road. “You get immediate colour, immediate bloom. It’s as if you started your garden a month or six weeks ago.”
Nursery workers explain the popularity of the lilac bush was largely driven by its flowering biology, which makes it a spring bloomer. So on Mother’s Day, celebrated on the second Sunday of May, lilacs are usually in bloom.
A lilac looks good in the pot when it’s presented to mom, and up to about 15 years ago, a lilac, ready for planting, was one of the most popular gifts on Mother’s Day.
But Gord Nickel, owner of Cannor Nurseries, 4660 Elk Lake Dr., said another element of the lilac’s biology, its quick growth and relatively large size, reaching two to three metres in height, makes it a tough fit for the modern garden. At the very least, a lilac often requires lots of pruning over the years.
A dwarf variety from Korea, Miss Kim, grows to about one metre and is a recent arrival for Victoria gardens. But the traditional English or French varieties are often too large for today’s smaller yards, never mind a condo balcony.
On the other hand, a hanging basket, filled with flowers and grown in greenhouses, makes everybody happy. And when they are fed with some slow-release fertilizer, they will last through the summer.
“People come in and say, ‘I need something with a bright, colourful ‘wow’ factor,’ ” said Nickel. “And this being the age of immediate gratification, they want something right now.”
But it’s not just bright flowers. Hanging baskets and planters are now being filled with herbs, which will be at their most pungent later in summer when the weather is warmer.
Meanwhile, Down to Earth Nurseries, 1096 Derrien Pl., sells hanging baskets and planters, with some of them being stocked with vegetable plants.
Kelly Chashai, owner of Down to Earth, said vegetables are the other modern garden craze. Everybody wants to grow their own food. Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and beans are all popular in a planter.
“People can pick them up, and off they go to mom’s place and have something for her little balcony garden,” Chashai said.
And for the mother who is less of a gardener and more of a flower lover, the orchid is one of the most popular gifts for Mother’s Day.
Miria Gordaneer, owner of Daisy Chain Florists, 950 Fort St., said she is always willing to give an orchid buyer a few tips to keep them growing.
With a little care, an orchid can stay in bloom for up to three months. Continued care will let it flower again in a few months.
Gordaneer has even had some customers come in and tell her they have had one orchid stem for six years and have counted as many as 65 blooms.
Orchids are deep-forest flowers, evolved to grow under leafy canopies, so the cultivated varieties don’t like direct sunlight and will thrive inside a home, as long as they can get some natural daylight.
“It’s such a stately, lovely, gorgeous flower and it brightens up any room. Orchids are so spectacular to look at and they are so very long-lasting,” Gordaneer said.
“And some mothers want things to last forever.”
