SOUTH HADLEY — Every year, in the lead-up to Mount Holyoke College’s commencement, graduating seniors participate in the Laurel Parade, carrying long chains of mountain laurel to be placed at the grave of college founder Mary Lyons.

A tradition the South Hadley campus dating to the end of the 19th century, Carey’s Flowers is the florist responsible for assembling those laurel chains, something its owners have been doing since the business opened in 1912.

For Seth Carey, the fourth-generation owner of the long-running flower shop at 300 Newton St., across from South Hadley High School, commencements continue to make May, along with the Mother’s Day and Memorial Day holidays, a busy month for his business.

“We do a tremendous amount with college graduations,” says Carey, adding that he is constantly evolving to stay relevant in a time when there are fewer funerals and churches, and many less formal occasions in society.

One way the three-employee shop has adapted is to have a website where people can place orders, picking out arrangements, offering sympathy or congratulations or to celebrate a holiday. Social media sites like Facebook and Instagram can also showcase what’s new and exciting at Carey’s Flowers, such as emphasizing seasonal plants, like the recently arrived dish gardens, an indoor houseplant, and bromeliads.

“Many customers, they just want us to make something appropriate for the occasion,” Carey said, as he uses his expertise in floral design to process orders, spending 10 to 15 minutes crafting, snipping and trimming the stems, positioning the flowers — like pittosparum, fern, hydrangea, carnations and alstromeria — in a workroom off the main showroom. “Everyday arrangements are our bread and butter.”

The arrangements will be refrigerated and ready to be delivered the next day. With the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Parade this weekend, green carnations, corsages and boutonnieres are being made to be worn in the parade or to be centerpieces at dinners. The following two weekends will be about supplying palms for Palm Sunday services and then Easter lilies.

But the Lenten season isn’t like the days when his father, James, and grandfather, Warren, would work all night, for days on end, making corsages that people would wear for Easter Sunday. In fact, the business is challenged by fewer houses of worship.

“Half the churches don’t even exist anymore,” Carey said. And the 20 pounds of jelly beans that would be consumed by customers and their children while buying Easter lilies are long gone.

Early history

Carey’s great-grandfather, Reginald, took over the store from the Beach family. He arrived from England in the early 1900s as a landscape architect working for the Guggenheims in New York, prompting the Skinner family of Holyoke to hire him at a new property in South Hadley center.

A sign from R.S. Carey Florist, positioned on the wall, shows the origins of the business, which was then passed to grandfather Warren, who with his brother Reginald ran the shop through the 1970s. Seth’s father then left teaching to run the business. The last physical expansion of the store came in the late 1990s.

Funeral homes closing and fewer wakes and funerals, and the lack of two days of calling hours, means the 30 orders of flower arrangements needed ahead of time is just a memory. “There were a lot more funeral homes in the ’80s and ’90s,” Carey said. “That has caused all florists to change what we do.”

The days when his father and grandfather would have the obituaries clipped from the various newspapers and posted on the wall are over, too. But Carey still works with funeral parlors and meets with grieving families to make things right, delivering flowers and ensuring they can be placed on the casket and the coordinating pieces at the ends.

“Being able to sit down with families and discuss things is important. They are getting 40 years of experience,” Carey said.

Another change is that Carey’s Flowers used to grow a lot of the product in three greenhouses and fields, including a showroom greenhouse where customers could buy annuals and house plants, similar to Montgomery Rose in Hadley, at a time when there weren’t wholesalers or garden centers.

His great-grandfather and great-uncle specialized in growing prize-winning chrysanthemums. Around Memorial Day, the store would have annuals, like petunias and geraniums, prompting the parking lot to be filled.

“Memorial Day was a huge holiday, to the point that we’d have to get police details,” Carey said.

That, too, has changed, with a reliance on importing from Ecuador, Columbia, New Zealand and Mexico, allowing for a greater variety of flowers.

Challenges

Carey’s Flowers felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the business to close due to no graduations, proms, funerals or weddings for months.

The boom of 1-800-Flowers and familiarity with getting flowers not professionally designed or delivered is another change. “It really changes a lot of people’s expectation of service,” Carey said. “With everyone home, they could find anything on the internet.”

Six supermarkets are also within minutes of the store. “Grocery stores are our competition, especially when it comes to Valentine’s Day,” Carey said. “They sell quantity but not the quality, but also don’t have the service we offer.”

The trust people put in the store is evident from the presidential wall, near the work room, featuring plaques and letters, including one from Gen. Wallace W. Farris Jr., the former commander of the 439th Airlift Wing at Westover Air Reserve Base. There are also pieces from presidential inaugurations worked with the Society of American Florists, including Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and a vice presidential ball for Vice President Al Gore.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.