As many of you plan your Thanksgiving menus, you’re probably thinking about where your food is coming from. Maybe you’ve ordered a local turkey, or you’re choosing local, organic produce for all of those tasty side dishes. As you decorate your table with a centerpiece, or pick up flowers to bring to a host’s house, have you thought about where those flowers came from?
I first read about eco-friendly flowers on an interior design blog that I love. The author wrote about how conventional hot house flowers are routinely sprayed with pesticides and fungicides; chemicals you don’t want to bring into your home. Fortunately, there are a number of websites where you can find toxin free, organically grown, cut flowers; so you can bring a little bit of nature indoors without the chemicals.
Flower Bud is a great site offering Veriflora certified flowers, wreaths and harvest boxes (lots of cut flowers for you to arrange yourself). (Veriflora is an emerging sustainability standard for cut flowers and potted plants.)
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| Thanksgiving Day bouquet from Flowerbud |
Organic Bouquet is also a great source of eco friendly flowers, centerpieces, wreaths and organic fruit baskets. They ship products in recycled boxes and paper plant sleeves (instead of plastic), and arrange cut flowers in recycled vases.
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| Eco friendly bird feeder wreath from Organic Bouquet |
Whole Foods floral department even offers eco-friendly cut flowers. Look for the Whole Trade Guarantee sticker to know that the flowers come from countries with ethical trade arrangements and earth friendly farming techniques.
Certainly buying organic, toxin free flowers from countries with ethical work and trade agreements makes sense, but what about buying locally grown flowers, the same way we buy locally grown produce….
This September I was fortunate to meet Debra Prinzing at the APLD conference in San Francisco.
Debra is a well known author and contributing writer to Garden Design Magazine (among other publications). She has recently published her newest book, The 50 Mile Bouquet where she examines how to buy local, or grow your own, organic flowers. She notes that “while the culinary world is exploding with farm-to-table chefs, similarly, there is an exciting revolution among floral designers who care about the field-to-vase journey.” I just ordered the book and can’t wait for it to arrive!
This time of year in New England, locally grown cut flowers may be scarce, but leaves, twigs, berries, fruit, pumpkins, and other natural treasures are plentiful and perfect for indoor arrangements. The most eco-friendly table design may be one made from produce and foliage found right outside your door. I love this table centerpiece from Martha Stewart that combines Sweet Gum leaves, purple artichokes and bright persimmons.
Simple, natural, beautiful!
