British adults are set to spend just over £1 billion on Mother's Day gifts this year, with almost half of this being spent on flowers. Flowers are the most popular Mother's Day gift amongst Brits, according to research by Serenata Flowers, with 48 per cent of adults saying they would show their appreciation with a pretty bouquet.
Most of these flowers will be purchased from supermarkets, rather than florists, due to the price. However, this doesn't mean you should have to compromise on quality. To help you decide where to get your bouquets this Mother's Day Paige Holland decided to put Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco to the test - and it was a close call.
Paige's flower of choice for the task were roses as most major supermarkets sell them all year round. She also compared them against several criteria - how much they cost, the quality, freshness and how the flowers would fare over seven days. She then spent the week watching their progress so that she could rank them from best to worst.
"To test the flowers fairly, I trimmed all of the stems, put them into separate glasses half-filled with water and placed them in the same location" Paige explained. "I also added the shop's designated plant food to each bouquet's glass."
Here's how she got on:
Sainsbury's
Sainsbury's was the first store I hit up and, as I expected, there was a good range of roses to choose from. After a quick browse, I settled on a pink bouquet of ‘simple roses’ which cost a very reasonable £3. When I bought these, the buds had just started to open, the petals were vibrant and not too many leaves came loose when I took the plastic off.
Not much changed over the first couple of days. The flowers had bloomed, the stems were standing tall and at this stage, it was safe to say that out of the three supermarkets, these looked the most aesthetically pleasing.
It was day four of the challenge before I first started to notice some signs of ageing and despite losing a bit of vibrancy they still looked really good. By the end of the week, only a few of the roses had wilted - so it definitely lived up to its seven-day freshness guarantee.
Rating 4.5/5
Tesco
Next up was Tesco, and unlike the other stores which sold the classic red, pink and yellow bouquets, it offered a lovely assortment of multi-coloured roses - a mix of white, yellow, pink and dark purple. And for just £2.29 for the bunch - the cheapest of all the contenders - I just couldn't resist picking them up.
On the first day of the test, they looked nice. The buds were a little closed, they were fresh, bright, and only a few leaves fell off, so it was off to a good start. But after only one day, it started to go downhill. There was already discolouration around the edges of the white roses and a couple of the yellow buds had started to wilt.
However, four days in, and surprisingly, the majority of the stems were standing tall - except for one of the yellow roses, which had developed black spots and had started to shrivel up.
By day seven, pretty much all of the flowers had wilted - bar one - and the leaves had gone crispy. These flowers might have come with a seven-day freshness guarantee, but mine sadly didn't last that long.
Rating 3.5/ 5
Morrisons
Last but not least was Morrisons. After rummaging around the flower stall, I secured the prettiest bunch and headed to the till with a bouquet of yellow roses for £3.
Since most of the buds were closed when I first purchased them, I had high hopes that they'd stand the test of time. Over the next few days, the flowers started to bloom and I loved how much they brightened up my kitchen.
But when we hit day four, we hit a bump in the road. One of the heads had wilted and another had completely fallen off. Now, if I'd been moving them around the house I could have had myself to blame for the unfortunate beheading, but this wasn't the case. So I had no choice but to deduct a point.
Morrison's roses have a five-day freshness guarantee. But it most definitely exceeded that. By day seven these still looked surprisingly bright - the majority were still standing tall and there wasn't that much wilting at all.
Rating 4/5
Overall verdict
Although Tesco flowers were the cheapest and I fell in love with the colourful bouquets on offer, they lost points because they didn't last the week and ultimately looked the worst by the end.
Morrison's came in second place with their yellow bouquet. But they definitely would have come out on top if that one bud hadn't let the team down.
In first place is Sainsbury's. The pink roses were beautiful, they were reasonably priced and they lived up to the seven-day freshness guarantee.
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