A Gold Coast Flower Calendar: What's in Season, and When

Flowers are grown, not manufactured. What is beautiful in August is not what is beautiful in January, and a shop offering exactly the same twelve arrangements all year is buying to a photograph rather than to quality.

This is the pattern we tend to see. Treat it as a pattern and not a promise: growers, weather and the market all move it around, sometimes by weeks.

Summer, December to February

The heat months. Sunflowers are at their best and their brightest. Gerberas, tropicals and anthuriums are strong. Natives keep going as they always do. Hydrangeas appear early in summer and are thirsty once they arrive.

Roses are available all year but summer is not their finest hour, so this is a good season to be led by colour rather than by a particular flower.

Autumn, March to May

Our favourite trading season. Dahlias arrive with all their drama, lisianthus is excellent, and roses come back into their proper form as the nights cool.

Chrysanthemums peak, which is not a coincidence: Mother's Day falls in May in Australia and the chrysanthemum is the flower of the month for it. Ours is the second Sunday in May, a different date from the northern hemisphere, so ignore whatever the internet tells you in March.

Winter, June to August

Quietly the best months for cut flowers here. Cool nights mean longer vase life across the board.

Australian natives are at their peak. Banksia and protea are at their most sculptural, and wattle turns up towards the end of winter. Tulips, ranunculus and poppies come through from the southern growing regions, and they are worth catching because their window is genuinely short.

Spring, September to November

Roses at their absolute best, which is the thing to know if you are planning a wedding. Blossom, sweet pea, delphinium and lilac all appear. Peonies have a famously brief Australian season late in spring and they sell out the moment they land, every year, without exception.

What this means for your order

Two practical things.

First, if you have no fixed idea, buy the season. Our in-season edit and the florist's choice arrangements are consistently the best value in the shop, because you are buying our judgement on what came through the market that morning rather than a fixed recipe we have to source regardless.

Second, if you want a specific flower for a specific date, tell us early. Weeks early for a wedding, and as far ahead as you can manage for anything landing near Mother's Day or Valentine's Day, when every florist in the country is buying the same stems at once.

And if what you want is not in season?

Ask us anyway. Some things can be brought in, some things genuinely cannot, and we would rather tell you honestly which is which than substitute something quietly and hope. Call us on 0402 522 505.