Buy Local
and why it's so important.
Blomma Flower Company strives to grow all of our flowers following organic practices, without the use of herbicides or pesticides. You can feel good carrying that beautiful, locally grown Blomma bouquet down the aisle and supporting a local small business that cares about our you and our environment.
The Ugly Side
of the Flower Industry
The BUY LOCAL food initiative has been going strong for years now. People go out of their way to buy locally grown, pesticide free, organic produce or “slow food” and meat so why are flowers so different?
It’s not the consumers fault they don’t know where their flowers come from or what they are sprayed with. There is a lack of transparency among this market, just like there was with food 10 years ago. But thankfully that is changing with the “slow flowers” movement. People are starting to understand that flowers are flown halfway across the world which puts a huge mark on our carbon footprint. Not to mention the fact that in some place where they are harvesting they have to wear hazmat suites to do so. Is that something you want to bury your nose into when it finally gets to your hands?
How many miles does a flower travel after being cut before it ends up in a U.S. florist shop or grocery store? The truth about the U.S. floral market is that flowers are traveling by plane more than 2000 miles just to get to their first entry point in the US. Their second leg of the trip involves being trucked to all corners of the U.S., adding another day or two onto their trek. During this long trip, cold storage is critical to try and slow the dying process of these fragile blooms. This only multiplies the already huge carbon footprint that this “commodity” requires. To put this into perspective, the three weeks leading up to Valentine's day, one of the biggest days for flowers (right next to Mother’s Day), the carbon dioxide emissions top 360,000 metric tons! Yikes!
In addition to use of chemicals during the growing process, due to the high level of scrutiny at US customs, where any sign of an insect can result in a destroyed shipment or additional costly fumigation, imported flowers are typically treated heavily with an insecticide before being packed up and placed on a cargo jet bound for Miami, San Francisco or New York. This treatment leaves a nasty chemical residue on the flowers that is unquestionably unhealthy (just ask the countless florists suffering from serious dermatitis on their hands and arms from handling imported flowers all day).
The international transit process also creates heaps of trash: boxes, plastic sleeves, little plastic tubes to support fragile stems, little webbed “socks” to keep big blooms like spider mums from falling apart, synthetic sponges, rubber bands, tons of packing paper, tape, even little blocks of wood that are used to stabilize the cardboard boxes so they can get tossed around even more. The flowers for a single FTD bouquet could generate enough rubbish to fill a curbside trash can! That’s trash that stays in our landfills for decades to come.
Buying local flowers, much like buying local food, is activism. By purchasing from us, you are saying no to harsh chemicals, exploitative labor practices, carbon emissions from long-distance shipping, and to a flower industry that is all about cheap rather than quality.
Small, independent, local flower farmers are members of their community. You know the farmer/ grower by name and their story. They are proud to steward their land and hand you a beautiful, safe product that was painstakingly grown for you with love. They worked darn hard to grow them, and they know darn well you’re going to love them.
It only stands to reason then that a local flower farmer is determined to get you the very best blooms. Their local flowers aren’t going on a jumbo jet to a faceless customer half a world away. Buying locally means reducing the above carbon footprint and saying no to pesticides and herbicides. At most, local flowers travel in a car or van 200 miles.
Locally grown flowers usually never leave water. Local flowers are frequently grown organically or with very minimal inputs. They grow in a field where the natural rain and sun support their growth, instead of in an expansive greenhouse range under plastic, being fed a slurry of synthetic fertilizers under artificial light. Locally grown flowers only require a bucket (that almost certainly gets washed and used again) and maybe a bit of paper for wrapping a bouquet. Definitely no trash heaps. Not even close!
Compared to the imports, locally grown flowers boast a huge array of diversity; countless varieties to choose from in a rainbow of colors. And these blooms feel so natural! They’re fragrant and delicate and dynamic to look at! The bees, butterflies and birds in the fields really enjoy the diversity too. Those winged friends go on to pollinate nearby food crops, keeping our ecosystem healthy and our tables full. Locally grown flowers provide good jobs for our immediate community.
Local flowers are usually picked the same day or just the day before you get them. You might even go pick them yourself. They last a lot longer in the vase – at least a week, sometimes two!
LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR FLOWERS
For a quick introduction to the Slow Flowers movement, check out this great short (10 minute) documentary, Local Flowers, Local Farmers: A Growing American Movement.
To learn more about flowers, we recommend reading Flower Confidential, an eye-opening exploration of the floral industry. To learn more about local flowers, check out The 50 Mile Bouquet, a book about the growing domestic & local flower movement.
You can also visit Slow Flowers or the Association for American Cut Flower Growers for more information about local flowers.
