Environmental awareness and sustainable floristry.
More than ever now we are aware of our environment, and as florists we need to be committed to respecting and protecting our environment . We need to preserve nature and the natural world to the best of our ability within the Florist industry.
It is important that we use sustainable materials and processes in our art as Florists. Many practices are debatable on many fronts, but each Florist must do what they believe is the most sustainable practice for their individual business. If we all give a helping hand the world will be the better for it.
Practices that we try our best to follow at Forever Flowers are composting our green waste and reusing it again then in our flowerbeds and polythene tunnel. We often also use chipped wood from large wood branch’s, as weed suppressants on our flowerbeds.
As good recyclers we send a lot of packaging back to the recycling centres. However on larger vases and even small glass jars we offer a return and refill scheme to our customers. This is where we can reuse the containers over and over again and keep their prices lower for our customers, as they are refilling with fresh blooms on a regular basis.
We try to be better to the environment by using more environmentally friendly arranging mediums as such as chicken wire and moss, agrya woll , oshun pouches, and kenzan holders. Although we have not managed to eliminate floral foam(plastic based product) completely from use at our workshop. We are very excited to learn of two new products coming on the market very soon one from America called phloam which will work equally as well as Floral foam and the other one from oasis floral products which is called “renewal” certified by TUV standards Austria. These new products are due to launch in spring 2025. It’s also a huge consideration to sell flowers that are displayed in less packaging, especially plastics . We like to use more paper based products and less cellophane , popping bouquets into recycled glass vases where possible.
Forever Flowers Drogheda is a huge fan of local and home grown flowers and foliage. This means less travelling miles, therefore less transport costs and toxic fumes released into the air. While yes because the Irish weather is not conducive to growing everything we do still have to buy in some foreign produce where we try to source some growers that are that have the best ethical practices and are fair trade suppliers . While we do appreciate home produced and we also like garden produce, (heck who doesn’t like the spoils of nature) We also must be aware of our environment and take care not to strip our forests and beach’s and areas of conservation of natural resources. We should not take moss , seaweed and wild flowers from their habitats.
A consideration for some Florists who operate in city and high traffic areas would also be delivery via bicycle keeping down the carbon footprint again.
As we grow some flowers here on our site on our small plot of land, and use these in our workshops and presentation bouquets. I believe it is a priority to grow as organically as we can and pesticide and herbicide free as we possibly can. We really do need less pollution in the air.
Here at Forever Flowers Drogheda I like to prioritise dried and preserved flowers over plastic flowers.
Water conservation is a big thing to consider in floristry, even from the simplest tasks as changing your water on your flowers and perhaps reusing it to water the plants. We need to keep water butts and containers on site for helping water our tunnel and plants. We like to encourage the use of fresh plants here because we feel they are better for the environment as they improve air quality. Never mind the fact that they have a feel good factor and often great fragrance along with the proven fact that they enhance productivity.
I hope this gives you food for thought! How we can help in our everyday practices.