ROCKPORT — Mother’s Day is the single busiest day for Hoboken Gardens, busier even than Valentine’s Day.

“Everybody has a mother,” said Lisa Farley retail manager for Hoboken Gardens. “It seems that’s the time of year people want to send flowers. Valentine’s Day is a close second, but not everybody has a wife or girlfriend, boyfriend or husband, so Mother’s Day tops it off.”

Farley said a vase arrangement of mixed flowers is the most popular for moms. Hoboken, at 310 Commercial Street in Rockport, delivers from Northport to St. George.

Surprisingly, Farley said that about 85 percent of Mother’s Day orders come in via the Internet. And it all gets busy beginning early Saturday morning, the day before Mother’s Day.

“We want to take care of all our customers, so it gets a little hectic around here,” said Farley. “People work on their day off, but we want to make sure everybody has good service.”

Good service even means taking good care of those who wait until the last minute to try and get something delivered.

“We are open on Sunday, Mother’s Day,” said Farley. “If they come in, or call late Saturday, we try to get them something for Sunday. You can always come in and buy an arrangement off the shelf. We have two coolers of arrangements and fresh cut flowers to choose from.”

For the last few years Rockport Police Chief Mark Kelley and Camden Fire Chief Chris Farley have helped make Mother’s Day deliveries for Hoboken Gardens.

“This is my fourth year and it’s fun,” said Kelley. “It’s a good community thing to do. We’re out and about, we know a lot of the people in Camden and Rockport. It’s an easy few hours to spend. And we don’t always see people having a good time in what we do so if we can go out and give somebody something to make them smile, it’s perfect.”

Together the two chiefs will make about 125 deliveries of flowers for the day. And they are just one team out of six drivers. They started around 9 a.m. and finished up between 3 or 4 p.m. Deliveries included Quarry Hill, Windward Gardens, Lord Camden Inn, a church and more residences than I could count.  

“Like Mark said, it makes you feel good,” said Chief Farley. “I’ve been doing this about five years now. I was asked the first time and I did such a good job they said they couldn’t do it without me.”      

“For the last two years, they have helped, along with the other drivers, to make moms happy in their towns,” said Lisa Farley. “It’s because we service so many towns. The Saturday before Mother’s Day it’s our biggest delivery day. By far we make more deliveries than people coming in and picking up an arrangement.”

She said customers will spend on average $50 to $60 on an arrangement. Roses, Hydrangeas, Tulips, Snap Dragons and/or Gerber Daisies are typical of flowers that might go into an arrangement.

“Gardening-type flowers,” as Farley called them.

Sharon Heck has been doing arrangements at Hoboken Gardens for 15 years. She said the arrangement depends on the vase into which the flowers are going.

“You select a vase and then you have a vision of what you want the arrangement to look like,” said Heck. “You can either do something very expensive or something with a more average cost. We can do arrangements from $35 and up. This particular arrangement I’m working on will run about $200.”

Heck said there is a mind set when doing arrangements for mothers.

“Pink, really happy colors; purple is good, and women seem to go more for pinks and purples,” said Heck. “Red is more for romance, so pink is a good thing. Big massive show pieces are the hardest to put together, those that are four and five feet tall. It can take as long as an hour to put an arrangement like that together, but simple arrangements can take 10 minutes, or a little longer.”

Michelle Heald is one of the owners of Hoboken Gardens. She said all the students will be home from college this weekend and they all get pressed into service to help make deliveries. Hoboken Gardens has been in business at its present location since 1988.

“This will be our 26 year here,” said Heald. “This was a former school house. My dad went to school here and that’s why he bought it. The building was called Hoboken School House and it was built by a Dutchman from Hoboken, Holland. It just keeps getting busier and busier. I personally think that making deliveries, especially on Mother’s Day, is the best job here because no matter what you do, the person is happy on the other end.”

Both Heald and Farley agree that with the other services and supplies that people come in for, mulch, stone, plantings, garden products and their gift shop, makes it the busiest time of the year. Sarah Culity is one of the delivery people at Hoboken Gardens.

“Delivering flowers on Mother’s Day is rewarding because everybody is happy to see you,” she said. “I’m happy to be part of it, I mean, who doesn’t love mothers, right? I am from around this area and no, I haven’t delivered flowers to my own mother, but I should. There are sad deliveries, too, when somebody in the family has passed, you feel bad for them, but Mother’s Day while really busy, is great.”  

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