SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Driving down Clairemont Drive, a new mural might catch your eye.
It features a bouquet of different flowers, an ode to the shop it sits on, the Divine Flower Shop.
"Mother's Day is one of the busiest ones for me," said Eduardo Velasquez, who bought the shop in 2020.
Velasquez says the shop itself has been there for more than 20 years, but now he is drawing in a new crowd with a freshly painted mural, banners and balloons.
"We all have to be unique. You have to put your signature on whatever you're doing in life," said Velasquez.
On Sunday afternoon, several customers stopped in after noticing the abundance of decor on the outside.
"We actually just drove by. We got coffee this morning right there and I was like - Oh, look! There's a cute little flower shop, we should go check it out!" said one customer.
Omari Mooring just finished painting the new mural on Friday.
"The foot traffic has increased significantly," said Mooring, explaining that many have stopped to ask what he is working on.
Velasquez agrees the artwork has attracted customers and expects demand to get even higher as Mother's Day gets closer.
"We all like try to prepare ahead of time, but it's not enough time," said Velasquez.
Velasquez orders fresh flowers merely days before getting them ready for customers so they will last for weeks.
However, he says the extremely rainy year seen in Southern California affected locally-grown flowers.
"We don't have local peonies," said Valesquez, pointing to storms as the problem.
Valesquez orders most of the store's inventory from abroad, but since he has a smaller space he cannot order the largest quantities, making shipments more expensive.
"We raise the prices cause we have to pay more... so for the small shops like me, it's not easy," he explained.
Still, Valesquez says flowers from the small shops typically last much longer than those from big grocery stores.
