Mother’s Day a boost to Superior flower shop

Mother’s Day is typically the mother of all flower sales for florists each year. That is both a good but tiring promise for Jackie Callison, owner of Jackie’s Flowers and Espresso in Superior.

“Things have been slow the past two months, and now I just have to shift it into high gear this weekend,” Callison joked. May 9, the flower shop bustled with a cheerfully hectic energy and the counters and floors were filled with roses, carnations, and colorful blooms ready for moms.

As Montana approaches the two-month mark of Coronavirus-related business closures and social distancing measures, the state is seeing restrictions beginning to ease and this brings eager hope to shop owners.

“I really wasn’t sure what to expect this year so I didn’t know how to prepare. I definitely didn’t go and panic buy flowers,” she laughed.

Callison ended up with large bulk supplies of flowers but was a little surprised by how many orders came in. “I think with everything going on this year people thought it was really important to send some flowers especially if you can’t go visit you’re Mom.”

Nearly four pages of delivery orders had to be arranged, prepped, and organized for drop-offs all through the day on Saturday. A posse of Callison’s close friends came to her aid producing a flower team for what is one of her busiest weekends this year.

Hazel Cromwell spent much of the day crafting numerous bouquets. Bonnie Pursifull assisted in organizing, loading and dropping off the creations to surprised local mothers.

Gretchen Webb generated a delivery labeling and tracking system for each beautiful arrangement. She has helped Callison around Valentine’s Day and for Mother’s Day she said, “This is nearly double the amount of orders, so having this setup helps.”

Hired on just last week, floral assistant Dana Sampson worked steadily on orders as calls streamed in Saturday morning.

“It’s a fun kind of chaos,” she stated as she and the other helpers danced around the shop grabbing vases, flowers, bows, and card stakes. “But really it’s kind of therapeutic working with the flowers and just focusing on what you’re making.”

With dozens of orders and special deliveries remaining and the phones still ringing, Callison guessed that she’d be in the shop until late into the evening on Mother’s Day Eve.

She easily puts in 10-hour days leading up to holidays such as these.

“I couldn’t do this without all these gals, they are just so wonderful,” Callison said. “The extra business right now has been a blessing for sure,” she added.

For Callison this hectic celebration of mothers is somewhat a pleasant distraction from the stress of the past few months and a renewed sense of normalcy.

“This has been hard on everybody and I think we’re all ready to move forward and just focus on the good.”