PENNSYLVANIA, USA — If you're planning to get mom flowers for Mother's Day, you may want to buy them sooner rather than later.
Florists say because of the pandemic, they've had issues with importing flowers and on top of that, there's been bad weather in South America where some flowers are grown impacting the supply here in the U.S.
Obviously Mother's Day is a huge flower holiday with Americans expected to spend $28 billion on Mom. Flowers are a leading gift choice, but because of the shortage this year, you may have to pay more.
Florists are urging people to get their flower orders in ahead of time because day of, some flowers may be sold out.
"Due to COVID, we're experiencing shortages in virtually every aspect of our industry," George Clements of George's Flowers said. "So, we have been scrambling, and this isn't something that just popped up. We were warned two months ago that shortages were going to be occurring for multiple reasons. We tried to modify to stay within our price points. There are some things that are slightly higher."
Florists are also urging customers to be flexible with the type of flower they would like in an arrangement, and the more popular flowers will likely sell out the fastest. On top of Mother's Day, florists are kicking off a busy wedding season. The shortage will impact brides and grooms as well. They ask anyone planning to purchase flowers in the future to again, be flexible and get orders in early.