It's the height of summer and this past week was 'Canadian Flowers Week', every summer I like to celebrate this week and take the opportunity to talk about why local flowers are so dang important to me.
Like the local food movement, local flowers have become a much more mainstream concept in recent years, allowing folks to support growers in their community with the added benefit of their purchase helping to preserve traditional skills and strengthen the local economy. Very much like purchasing your produce from a local farm, when you buy local flowers you get to connect with the grower who planned, seeded, planted, tended and harvested the crops for you. You get to support the resiliency and wellbeing of your local economy and environment. But for me one of the most important things about local flowers or at least the flowers that I grow for my community is the quality.
When I talk about quality, I don't mean just the obvious things like more interesting variety, longer lasting stems and better fragrance, I am also talking about transparency in how the flowers were grown and the level of integrity and ethics that need to be upheld when your customers are your friends and neighbours. I operate my farm with the intention of being a good neighbour not just to the humans I live nearby but also the insects, animals and plants that share this land with my family. This means we never apply herbicides, pesticides, synthetic fertilizers or other chemicals that could be harmful to native plant and insect populations. I plant a wide variety of crops, and some native species simply just to provide biodiversity and variety for pollinators. I do my best to implement growing practices that support healthy soils which leads to healthier more disease resistant crops. Because of this, the flowers grown at Herbarium are safe for me to handle on a daily basis and safe for you to enjoy!
Unfortunately, most internationally imported, conventionally grown flowers (which include the vast majority of flowers you'll find at the grocery store or conventional florist) are heavily sprayed with toxic chemicals. Some of these chemicals are banned for use on food crops yet are permitted to be used on cut flowers. Some of the worst culprits for high chemical residues are roses, chrysanthemums and carnations. This means they are not safe for you to handle and definitely not safe to sink your nose into and although they are technically edible, if not labelled as organic, they should absolutely not be used in food (in my opinion).
In addition to chemical residues found on many imported flowers there is the environmental impact of shipping flowers across the globe, in this article comparing the carbon footprint of locally grown flowers to their imported counterparts, a locally grown bouquet has an estimated carbon footprint as low as 0.1kg C02 vs the imported version being as high as 9kg of C02 (I would argue this is likely even higher here in the Kootenays where the imported stems need to travel by land to our "remote area").
So that's a few reasons why imported stems are unattractive, but to wrap up on an uplifting note. I think it's worth mentioning the importance of how locally grown flowers are also seasonal flowers. This means you are enjoying the seasons as they shift, daffodils in April, peonies in June, the symphony of summer annuals in July and Aug. This connection to the changing seasons anchors us to the place where we live, it connects us to the subtle seasonal changes that surround us, and for me, the shifting cast of characters that are featured in bouquets reminds me to be present. Because they are only here for a brief moment, that ephemeral presence makes them all the more precious and beautiful.
A List of reasons why flowers grown at Herbarium are superior to their imported counterparts:
- More interesting variety of florals available
- Longer lasting and more fragrant stems
- Safe to handle and smell (no toxic chemical residues)
- Grown without the use of synthetic chemicals
- Supports a local business
- Transparency!
- Supports the resiliency of the local economy
- Preserves traditional skills
- Supports biodiversity
- Helps protect native pollinators by providing habitat
- Lower carbon footprint
- Little to no plastic packaging
- Connects you to the changing season
- Reminds you to be present
Thank you for choosing local flowers and "Herbarium' - I truly appreciate your support.
Happy Canadian Flowers Week!
Jess
