local flower growers

Where is the local flower grower in your area? If you want flowers for your home, a special dinner or large event, your best bet is to find a local flower shop or florist that specializes in sustainable flowers.  Why?  Well, unfortunately it can take quite a bit of fancy footwork to find local growers and to actually get their flowers to your door.   (Hopefully in the future this will be a lot easier).  Unfortunately where you find most flowers, you find pesticides, thousands of miles of travel and probably a lot of plastic.  Yikes Most flowers are shipped miles and miles around the world and that means a lot of packaging and chemicals to keep them looking nice and refrigeration and gas/jet fuel to get them around.  Not to mention the resulting high amounts of pesticides and unfair pay/working practices that often result in less developed countries. Unfortunately, many flower shops may not even know where the flowers came from or how they were grown. If you work in floral design or event planning as I do, you have the opportunity as a vendor to work with growers, even visit local farms and ask questions.  How do they grow the flowers?  Are all the flowers they sell from their farms?  What do they pay workers?  How much fertilizer and pesticide is used?  Do they rotate crops?  Etc.  This information can be presented to clients and customers. If you're a customer: become an educated one.  Ask questions.  Give your business to vendors who are doing the footwork.  Give a darn about your green. These are some flower designs I created from local growers: [gallery link="file" order="DESC" columns="2"] If you are a vendor check out www.ascfg.org for specialty growers in your area and see if they are sustainable.   If you're looking for local sustainable flower designers or shops, google may be your best friend, but you can also check out www.ecobusinesslinks.com If you live in CA and don't have time to find a florist, you can order online.  However, they ship, so it's not the most sustainable option.  But hey, better than nothing: www.californiaorganicflowers.com If you live in the BAY AREA, contact me: pilar@gorgeousandgreenevents.com