Being green -- even with flowers on Valentine’s Day
When Jim Tripp sends a bouquet of Valentine’s roses to wife Lauren, he makes sure the flowers are grown locally.
“It’s important to support organic farmers and make a conscious choice about where our money goes,” says Tripp, Aramark’s general manager for sports, entertainment and conventions at the Anaheim Convention Center. “Every time I pull out my checkbook, I can make a difference.”
According to the Society of American Florists, 187 million roses are produced for Valentine’s Day, but only a fraction of those are sustainably or organically grown. Consumers have gotten smarter about the environmental consequences of their purchases, whether they’re paints, cabinets, floors or cleaners. But will that eco-consciousness extend to floral gestures of affection? And what does make flowers green?
Answers vary depending on the source. Roses that carry the VeriFlora Certified label, for example, meet nearly 100 pages of guidelines for sustainable crop production, ecosystem protection and fair labor practices. Other factors are whether fertilizers or pesticides were applied during production or whether the flowers were grown locally.
“We believe California flowers are the green alternative, whether we stick a label on them or not,” says Kasey Cronquist, executive director of the California Cut Flower Commission, an association of growers. He cites surveys showing that 55% of consumers would buy California flowers if given a choice but that 85% of those people say they don’t know the origin of the flowers they purchase.
More shoppers are requesting local or otherwise sustainable flowers, however, and the floral trade has begun to respond, says Amy Stewart, author of the 2007 book “Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful.”
“There was a period of time in the middle of the last decade when the North American and South American flower industry looked at this eco-movement in Europe and rolled their eyes, thinking, ‘This is going to come and go, but the consumer doesn’t want to pay for it,’ ” Stewart says. “Now, we’re seeing that people do deeply think about where their dollars are being spent and where things come from.”
Marc Kessler, founder of California Organic Flowers, raises 100% organic blooms on a 3-acre farm in Chico and ships them overnight to all 50 states. His message: Field-grown flowers have better color, stronger stems and more vibrant foliage than crops raised hydroponically or in greenhouses.
Ariana Lambert Smeraldo, owner of the West Hollywood floral design studio Lily Lodge, gave her clients a different reason to go green a few years ago. She sent a pre-Valentine’s Day e-mail that read: “Don’t poison the ones you love.”
“It had humor behind it, but it gave me a way to tell them why to buy organic flowers,” Smeraldo says. “Handling pesticide-ridden flowers, especially around children isn’t funny.”
Skeptics of the organic movement will argue that conventionally grown flowers, including those from overseas, are perfectly safe. But Lily Lodge insists on the organic and the sustainably raised. Clients can pair blooms with recycled glass containers or have bouquets delivered in a recyclable box.
Writer and director Salim Akil turned to Lily Lodge for flowers for his wife, actress Mara Brock Akil.
“I’m not the greenest person,” he says, “but she is.”
One challenge for environmentally conscious floral designers is to convince clients that not all flowers are available in every season, says Christine Saunders, vice president of Organicbouquet.com, which connects consumers with small flower farms in the state. For Valentine’s Day, she suggests giving local tulips (pictured on Page E1).
Kessler is featuring bunches of red and pink anemones or the fragrant, heirloom narcissus Tazetta.
With so many choices, “I think people can get overwhelmed with trying to be green,” Smeraldo says. “But by supporting green businesses, consumers can help change the marketplace and push more growers to switch to environmentally friendly practices.”
