Ask a florist what is in season and you will usually get a shrug, because a good wholesaler can put almost any flower in your hand in almost any month. The honest version of the question is narrower and far more useful: what is California actually cutting this week? Those stems travel a few hours instead of a few days, and they reach the vase with the most life left in them.
We have been arranging flowers in Los Angeles since 2021, and the calendar below is the one we buy against. Every month range in it comes from a grower's own published calendar. Where no California grower publishes a season, we say so plainly instead of inventing one.
Winter into spring: the strongest stretch of the California year
Most of the country thinks of flowers as a summer crop. In California the opposite is closer to true. The cool, bright months from January through May are when the fields around Oceanside, Carlsbad and Fallbrook are at their best, and they produce flowers you simply cannot buy this well at any other time.
- Stock runs January through May, at its best from February to April. It is the flower that makes a room smell like a garden rather than like a shop.
- Ranunculus runs February through May and peaks in March and April. This is the one worth waiting for. The same crop fills the ranunculus fields in Carlsbad that open to visitors each spring, and in peak weeks California ranunculus is both better and cheaper than anything flown in.
- Wax flower carries from December through May, which makes it the winter filler that is genuinely local rather than genuinely convenient.
- Pincushion protea is a February to April flower. It is grown inland in San Diego County, and it is the reason a Los Angeles arrangement can look nothing like a Midwestern one.
If you are ordering in February, March or April, this is the list to build from. Anything on it will be fresher, and often less expensive, than the imported alternative sitting next to it in the cooler.
Three things we make from that late-winter and spring list.
Épure Rose
Ranunculus with eucalyptus, which in March and April is about as Californian as a bouquet in this city gets.
Blush Ranunculus & Eucalyptus
The smaller version, and the one to order in the February to May window rather than in July.
Pink Muse
Stock on its own. Olivia's own favourite, and the flower that makes the strongest case for buying to the calendar.
Spring into autumn: roses out of the field, and sunflowers
Field-grown garden roses run from the middle of April to the end of November. This is worth separating carefully from the roses you can buy any week of the year. Greenhouse roses are a year-round product and a perfectly good one. Field-grown California garden roses are a seasonal crop with a shorter vase life, heavier scent and a looser, older shape. Rose Story Farm in Carpinteria, which grows them, describes blooms rotating in six-week cycles across that mid-April to end-of-November window. If you want that particular kind of rose, the season is the constraint, not the price. Our roses include both kinds, and we will tell you which is which.
Sunflowers run March through October, with the novelty varieties, the rusts and the chocolate centres, arriving in the back half of that window from July. They are the workhorse of a California summer: cheap, durable, and impossible to make look sad.
Summer into autumn: dahlias, then Safari Sunset
Dahlias run June through October and peak in August and September. They are the reason late summer arrangements in Los Angeles look completely different from spring ones. They are also fragile, and they do not enjoy a hot car, which is one more argument for buying them in the months when they are local.
Leucadendron Safari Sunset arrives September through November. It is the stem that carries an arrangement from summer into autumn without reaching for anything orange and pumpkin-shaped, and it dries well, so it outlives the rest of the bouquet by weeks.
The flowers with no season here at all
Some things are cut in California in all twelve months, and they are the quiet backbone of most of what we make. Snapdragon is one. So are the California greens: eucalyptus, myrtle, rosemary, salal and olive. If you have ever wondered why a Los Angeles bouquet smells faintly of a hillside, that is why. These are the stems that let a mono-bouquet, our signature format, stay simple without looking bare.
Peonies are not a California flower
This is the part most florists will not put in writing, so we will. There is no California peony grower. We could not find one, and neither can anyone else. Every peony sold in Los Angeles is imported, in every month of the year, most often from Alaska, the Netherlands, Chile or New Zealand.
The Northern Hemisphere field season runs roughly May and June, and the Alaskan crop lands from late July into August. Outside those windows, peonies come out of cold storage, and their quality moves with the source rather than with the calendar. That does not mean you should not order them. It means the month on the calendar tells you nothing about how good they will be, and you should ask instead of assume. We will say honestly what has just landed.
Year-round on imports, and we will not print a season for them
Freesia, hydrangea, tulips, lisianthus, anemone and carnations are available in Los Angeles all year. You will find florists publishing confident California months for all six. We will not, because no California grower publishes a season for them and the year-round supply is an import story, not a local one. What we can tell you truthfully is that they are here every week, and that their quality is a question about the shipment rather than about the month.
What to do with this when you order
You do not need to memorise any of it. Three habits cover most of the value:
- Name the month, not the flower. "Something that is genuinely good right now" gets you a better arrangement than a fixed list, and usually costs less.
- Ask which stems are Californian. Any florist who buys at the market can answer this. Our Downtown LA studio sits nine tenths of a mile from the Original Los Angeles Flower Market, so the answer changes for us week by week. Our Downtown LA, Glendale and Pasadena studios all buy from the same district.
- Let the season decide the shape. A March arrangement built on ranunculus and stock and a September one built on dahlias and Safari Sunset are different objects. Trying to make one look like the other is how flowers get expensive for no reason.
Weather moves all of this. Mellano and Company, whose crop calendar sits behind several of the dates above, puts it plainly on their own page: "Weather events can impact what we have available, so our inventory may change without notice." A heat wave shortens a ranunculus season. A cold spring pushes dahlias back. Treat every range here as a strong expectation rather than a guarantee.
Where these dates come from
The stock, ranunculus, sunflower, wax flower, pincushion protea and Safari Sunset ranges come from the crop calendar published by Mellano and Company, a Southern California grower and wholesaler with fields in Oceanside and Carlsbad. The protea and Safari Sunset windows are corroborated by Resendiz Brothers Protea Growers in Fallbrook. The garden rose window is Rose Story Farm's own, from their site. The ranunculus fields open to the public each spring are The Flower Fields in Carlsbad. The dahlia range follows Mayesh's flower library.
We deliberately do not cite the California Cut Flower Commission, which many seasonality guides still quote. The organisation has wound up, and its charts are no longer maintained.
Order what is actually good this week
Browse our bouquets, or ask us for a mono-bouquet built on whatever is best at the market that morning. Call +1 (626) 888-8449. We are open daily, 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM; the same-day cutoff is 3:00 PM Pacific, express runs 2 to 3 hours, and Ready Now can be with you in about an hour. If the flowers arrive and they are not fresh, we replace them or refund you.
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