Purple calla lilies, green hydrangeas, lime lizard chrysanthemums, and golden sunflowers fill the space at Full Bloom Flowers on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive. The small studio might look like any other neighbourhood floral shop, but in fact, it’s greener than most.
Making up a sizable portion of the bouquets here are local, organic and fair trade flowers. Just as organic food has become a billion-dollar industry, with consumers saying no to chemicals that contaminate their produce and the planet, interest in pesticide-free petals is growing.
“So many industries have gone in a direction where it’s antithetical to the health of the planet, and the floral industry is just another wave,” Full Bloom Flowers co-owner Diane Levings says, sitting amid salal, snapdragons, and ornamental grasses during a break between deliveries. “But more and more smaller outfits are doing organic products.
“The interest in organic and fair trade flowers really mirrors the natural-food movement,” she says. “There’s the 100-mile diet; we have 100-mile floral arrangements.”
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