Mother's Day 2026

The weekend of Mother's Day 2026 was the first time I EVER sold flowers.

Maggie with the flower stand set up for the very first time.

This is my first season open for business and I never planned on selling for Mother's Day because I didn't think I'd have flowers available. Which was sort of true. I had a little bit of lilac, bleeding heart, solomon's seal and some random foliage. Definitely not enough on its own for bouquets.

Lennie Larkin, a flower farmer based in Oregon is the reason I tried. She does business coaching for flower farmers on the side, and this year was her third year running the Mother's Day boot camp course. In all of her marketing she urged farmers not to sit out just because they didn't have enough flowers. She was able to hook the course participants up with a wholesaler. This wholesaler works directly with farmers all across the United States. All flowers remained as local as possible, American grown flowers for the win!

In addition to reassuring on the product end of things, Lennie had made a wonderful point that it's the perfect time to open for the season - or in my case and a few others, open for the first time ever.

I debated for probably a week going back and forth. Finally, I decided to just jump. There will never be a better time to open for the first time OR the season.

All and all, it was a good bootcamp. There was structure and she held our hands through every step. Every week we'd all hop on a call to debrief, share wins and also share fears. There was a Facebook group so we could all connect on a daily basis. This was a wonderful community. I've taken a different course from Lennie but it was self paced. That means no support group on Facebook. That being said, I thought both courses were excellent!

Participants set goals at the beginning, many people exceeded their goals! I did not, but I knew I wouldn't. I still did better than I expected.

I have previously worked at a flower shop, so I am WELL AWARE of how last minute Mother's Day shoppers are. Oh boy did that fact both stress me and calm me at the same time. It was two sides of one coin. I am brand new, no one knows I exist yet. On the other hand, shoppers are always last second.

To be completely transparent, whether I should or not, I will. I had three official pre orders. Two were from my cousins for their wives. Another was someone that had found me off of google. That was the most encouraging thing for me to experience. Additionally, my brother asked me to make something up for my sister in law - he did not submit a form. As well as my partner, he did not submit a form, but asked me to make something up for his mom. In total, I had five pre orders.

The week of Mother's Day was incredibly chaotic for me for many reasons. The only calm part was being on vacation from my real job. I got all four of my wisdom teeth out. I was working at the flower shop I used to work at and ended up going in for more hours than originally expected because they were short staffed. My wholesale orders got messed up a little bit, and a good amount of my product came in looking like garbage. On top of that, I had my own personal nerves about opening and selling. I was supposed to be open for roadside on Friday which never ended up happening because I worked extra.

I calmed my nerves and set out to do business as usual on Saturday. And no one showed, except for a pre order cousin and the delivery for the person that found me from google. A whole new cousin did last second text me for flowers that night.

Bouquet for the customer from google!

Sunday, day of Mother's Day, I set up the stand. Both my of my other two cousins came to pick up their orders. I went inside and sat in my living room with a ball of anxiousness. I heard a car door, and when I peaked outside I saw a woman looking at my stand. I was so excited and anxious and all the emotions. Then I heard the car door again, they left without buying. And that was perfectly okay with me, because someone stopped. They saw my make shift stand, wanted to look at what I had - looked for a couple minuets too. And now they will remember they saw a stand with flowers some place in Attleboro.

Within minuets of this, my hair stylist Haley - shoutout Haley at Dream State Beauty Collective in East Providence, RI - texts me saying she planned on coming by. And she did! Because Haley is absolutely amazing and kind. She was the first person I knew personally outside of my family to support me.

Later in the day, someone my brother knows came by because he worked a ton of overtime the whole weekend and his local flower shop was closed by the time he was out of work on Sunday. He drove all the way to me because, he remembered my brother reposting my Mother's Day promotions.

All and all, I didn't do nearly as well as I had hoped. But I did better than I honestly thought I would. My biggest win is EASILY my customer that found me off google and trusted me with the flowers for their mother. I'm so grateful for that order to have come through because that gave me so much encouragement.

My deepest pit is from the gas station right around the corner. Every holiday they're out selling merchandise. It's hard to compete when they're there every holiday and they're cheap. Quality is way better than quantity in my humble opinion. But I also believe in people getting the most bang out of their buck. There's more bang the longer flowers last but many people are looking for cheap flowers. That is something I cannot compete with.

The flower stand hasn't been open again since, we are waiting for more flowers to start blooming. Peonies are next and should be blooming within a week and a half. There were some trials and tribulations to consider for all future days the farm stand is open.

I look forward to seeing friendly faces both new and reoccurring throughout this season. Thank you to everyone that was able to support the stand for Mother's Day! It means the world to me! I will be at the Canton Farmers Market this season, more details to share soon.