What Flowers Are in Season in May in the UK?

Short answer: May is the month the British flower year changes hands. The bulbs finish, and peonies, sweet peas, alliums, lilac, foxgloves, delphiniums and the first British roses take over. Imported peonies build through the month and British ones start around the end of it. Lily of the valley peaks on the 1st and is gone within a fortnight.

Every other month of the British season is a variation on the one before it. May is a handover. At the start of the month the shelves still look like spring — tulips, ranunculus, late narcissi — and by the end of it they look like summer, with stems twice the length and scent you can smell from the doorway. Nothing else in the calendar turns over this fast.

What is actually in season in the UK in May?

Alliums, aquilegia, astrantia, camassia, cornflowers, delphiniums, foxgloves, lilac, lupins, nigella, peonies from the end of the month, ranunculus finishing, scabious, solomon's seal, stocks, sweet rocket, sweet williams, the first British sweet peas, and roses from British glasshouses. Alchemilla, guelder rose, hosta leaves and copper beech carry the foliage.

What has gone: tulips, narcissi, hyacinths, muscari, fritillaria. The bulb crop that ran from January is finished, and outdoor British tulips do not come back until next April — the current range is in tulips, but from May onwards those are imported rather than British.

When do British peonies actually start?

The very end of May in a normal year, and mid-May in an early one. Before that, everything sold in Britain is imported: Israel and Italy from late April, then the Netherlands, then France. The British crop runs from roughly the end of May to early July, and it is the shortest commercial window of any flower we sell.

This is the practical difference between ordering peonies on the 5th of May and on the 30th. Early in the month they have travelled, they cost what travelling costs, and the buds are tight because they had to be. Late in the month they are cut here, they open in two or three days, and the choice of variety is at its widest. If the date is flexible at all, wait — see peonies for what is open now.

Are sweet peas in season in May?

Glasshouse sweet peas have been around since April; British field-grown sweet peas start at the end of May and run through the summer. The field-grown ones are the point: shorter stems, stronger scent, and a vase life of about four to five days against the week you get from most things standing next to them.

They are the flower people most often feel cheated by, and it is worth being straight about why. A sweet pea is bought for scent and it is spent quickly by design — the plant is trying to set seed, and cutting it is what keeps it flowering. If you want them to last, pick off anything that has gone over every day and keep them somewhere cool. If you want them to last a fortnight, buy something else.

Is lily of the valley really a 1st of May flower?

Yes, and unusually literally. It peaks around the 1st of May, sells out for the date across Europe because of the French muguet tradition, and is largely a forced Dutch crop rather than a British field one. In 2027 the 1st of May falls on a Saturday, which will make it busier than a mid-week year.

Two things to know before ordering it. It is small and expensive for its size, because the yield per plant is tiny and it is picked by hand. And it lasts a few days, not a week. Buy it for a specific day or buy it as a plant in a pot, which stays alive and can go into the garden afterwards — those are in plants.

What is flown in during May?

The constant list runs all year: roses from Kenya, Ethiopia, Ecuador and Colombia, lisianthus, alstroemeria, gerbera, lilies, chrysanthemums, orchids and hydrangeas, mostly routed through the Dutch auctions. In May the imports that matter are peonies from Israel, Italy, France and the Netherlands for the first three weeks, Dutch lilac, and glasshouse sweet peas.

British roses exist and are worth asking about, but they are a glasshouse crop in May and a small one; the garden roses with the heavy scent and the short stems come in June. Everything currently open is in roses.

Which May flowers last longest?

Alstroemeria, chrysanthemums, carnations and lisianthus outlast everything as usual, and among the seasonal British flowers the reliable ones are alliums, astrantia, nigella and scabious — all of which will stand for a week or more if the water is changed.

The short-lived list is longer this month than most: lilac, which needs its woody stem split and still drinks badly, sweet peas, lily of the valley, foxgloves and open peonies. May is also the first month when a warm room genuinely shortens a vase, and peonies in particular open from bud to blown in a single hot afternoon on a windowsill. The general figures are in how long flowers last.

Is May a good month for a wedding in Britain?

It is a good month with one caveat that costs couples money every year: May is not peony season for most of its length. A wedding on the 10th of May cannot have British peonies and can only have imported ones at import prices; a wedding on the 5th of June can have them cut here that week.

What May does have, and June has less of, is the whole spring palette at full length — alliums, delphiniums, foxgloves, lilac, aquilegia and stocks, all of them tall, all of them British. A May wedding that leans into that looks like May rather than like a slightly early June, and it is cheaper. The starting point is wedding flowers.

When should you order in May, and are there dates to watch?

Two bank holidays, on the 3rd and the 31st in 2027, and both move deliveries rather than stop them. The one date most people in Britain miss is that Mother's Day in the United States, Australia and much of Europe is the second Sunday of May — the 9th in 2027 — which is nothing to do with British Mothering Sunday in March. If you are sending to a mother abroad, that is the date to work to, and orders leaving Britain need more notice than orders staying in London.

For ordinary May orders there is no scarcity and no need to plan ahead: we deliver across London seven days a week and take orders until 22:00 for the following day. For the month just gone, see what is in season in April; for the month the whole year builds towards, see what is in season in June.