Celebrating mothers in Canada

Sunday, May 14 is Mother's Day.

To mark this special occasion, we found some data on flowers—the sweet gifts of spring blooming for mothers of all kinds all over Canada today.

In 2022, 317.6 million flowers were cut in greenhouses across the country.

The largest proportion of flowers cut in 2022 was tulips (134.6 million), followed by gerberas (74.1 million), snapdragons (26.6 million) and chrysanthemums (21.9 million). Ranked lower on the list were lilies (15.0 million), lisianthus (14.3 million), alstroemerias (3.4 million), roses (2.8 million), freesias (2.3 million), daffodils (1.6 million) and irises (198.4 thousand).

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, demand has been high for hanging baskets, potted plants and garden products, as many Canadians rediscovered the pleasures of gardening and growing plants.

In 2022, total sales of the greenhouse, nursery, field cut flowers and sod industries rose 7.6% compared with 2021 to $5.1 billion. Greenhouse products ($4.2 billion) accounted for 82.2% of total sales, up 9.8% from the previous year.

Greenhouse flower and plant sales and resales rose 6.7% to $2.0 billion in 2022. Overall, greenhouse flowers and plants produced in-house represented 90.7% of total flower and plant sales value.

Greenhouse cutting sales also increased, up 8.2% to $62.0 million in 2022, which is above the five-year average of $53.2 million.

As spring has sprung, this Sunday is a day for us all to smell the fresh flowers and celebrate the beautiful gift of mothers of all kinds in Canada.