Moms and proms, teachers and graduates — and nurses.

It's a week of celebrations in which flowers are often the gift of choice, and local florists expect their phones to be ringing until the last possible minute.

Greg Eans/The Daily Reflector (ENLARGE)

Tina Lee with The Flower Basket creates a flower arrangement at her shop in Greenville on Thursday. Business is booming with Mother's Day, prom and graduations coinciding.

Did you remember Mother's Day is Sunday?

"There's a few out there that are a month ahead of everybody — but that's a few," said Roselind Gibson, owner of John's Flowers & Gifts. "The rest of us, it's likes 'Oops, it's here' and it's time to get on the phone and call. That's when it really puts pressure on those who are doing bouquets."

Mother's Day is the centerpiece in an arrangement of holidays and celebrations that converge in May, bringing a rush of orders for flowers that is second only to Valentine's Day.

Along with South Central High School's prom and East Carolina University's graduation, National Nurses and Teacher Appreciation weeks are taking place.

For Tina Lee at The Flower Basket in Greenville, that means a lot of late nights to accommodate her customers. She began tying bows several weeks ago to prepare for Pitt County's proms — J.H. Rose had its prom on April 26, and Ayden-Grifton, D.H. Conley and Farmville Central had theirs on May 3.

"As we have the last couple of weeks with proms, I spend my nights here doing the wrist corsages that take a lot of time," Lee said. "This week it's really crazy because it's ECU graduation, Teacher Appreciation, Nurses Day, Mother's Day. There's quite a bit this week."

With 28 years in the business, Lee knows what to expect and places her orders early with wholesalers.

"Then we just work really, really hard," said Lee, who owns the shop with her husband, Greg. "We're still a smaller mom-and-pop shop. We have two and three employees at any given time and, of course, they all have to work extra too."

Michael Glenn at Jefferson's in downtown Greenville said there's "a careful balance" to ensure an adequate supply of flowers on hand and deliver them at peak freshness.

"There's a lot of care that goes into things as they come in the door," he said. "All of our fresh flowers are processed by hand. There's kind of a waiting period while they drink water and let the stems rehydrate themselves.

"We've had a prom every weekend for last three weekends," Glenn said. "It is balancing act for sure, but we're able to stay on top of it.

"We're getting here a little earlier than normal, but we kind of plan for these things and know that Mother's Day is going to be a ride so to speak, but a good one," he said. "Generally it's not the chaos of Valentine's Day, but it definitely up there with one of the busier holidays in the floral business."

That includes the procrastinators, Glenn said.

"There's a lot of last-minute phone calls, and we try to be here to answer the phones," he said. "If the phone rings, we pick it up. We know there are people that are last-minute."

Mother's Day deliveries will be made Saturday, Glenn said.

"We're going to have all our vehicles on the road Saturday getting everyone's orders out," he said. "The trick is really catching people at home. We're all so busy, and people are out shopping and doing their thing, and they're not always expecting flowers.

"When we do catch them at home it is a nice surprise."

Mike Grizzard can be contacted at mgrizzard@coxnc.com and 329-9580.