Are Wedding Flowers Bad for the Environment?

Sustainability Policy

This is a question, as with many environmental issues that can have lots of different answers and opinions. Here are our thoughts at the The Flower Farm.

We pride ourself on our honesty regarding environmental issues within our business. While we strive to run The Flower Farm as greenly as we can, we are not perfect and have to be realistic. We are always looking for ways to provide our customers with exactly what they want in the most sustainable way possible.

We are working hard to reduce our carbon footprint and the amount of waste we produce to reduce our impact on the environment.

We aim to provide the highest quality flowers, in the varieties you love, whilst giving you the most value for money, in the most sustainable way possible.

 Please feel free to discuss the environmental impacts of your flower choices with us if you so wish, if you prefer sustainability, say  over choice of varieties, or price, do let us know and we can work with you to create something beautiful and sustainable.

Seasonal flowers

We love seasonal flowers, in our opinion you cannot beat them, they are the best value for money, travel the smallest distances, and just look right for the time of year. We always consider where our flowers come from, and how they are grown to reduce the amount of transportation and air miles. We aim to work with our own, homegrown flowers first and foremost; followed by other British flower growers, and where possible will opt for seasonal and British varieties in our designs before anything else.

However, a lot of flowers used in the floristry industry are imported from other countries, we are always happy to use them, especially during the winter months or if they are specifically requested to get the look you want for your wedding date, for example if you love roses or gypsophila it is often difficult to source British grown ones that are good enough quality to meet our high standards, so we would more often than not import them, always trying to choose a product that has been grown and produced in an ethical and sustainable way.

Reduce and recycle waste

All our green waste is separated from any other rubbish and composted. Any additional cardboard or plastics that can be recycled are.

Our flowers are either picked specifically for your designs, or when ordered in, in the specific required amounts to ensure a minimal storage time so you get to enjoy the flowers at their freshest. This reduces any need for refrigeration and cuts down on the amount of water used to hydrate the flowers.

Minimal use of floral foam

Floral foam provides great support for flower stems and as it is so absorbent, provides a good source of water. However, it is a plastic which does not break down in landfill.

Oasis, the main producer of floral foam has developed a new bio-degradable floral foam which is now our first choice if we need to use foam, however where financially and time efficiently practical, we are opting for alternative methods and more natural materials to form a base for our designs.  

Re-use and recycle packaging and mechanics

Our gift bouquets or bridal bouquets are presented in glass jars or vases which can be reused, rather than in boxes.

Rather than using new plastic containers for all our floral designs we consider more eco-friendly alternatives if it fits with your style, such as milk churns, wooden crates or cut-glass vases that have been upcycled.

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Where possible we offer free hire of containers for our weddings rather than sourcing new for every event. The vases and stands we already own are available to use free of charge along side your flower order with us.

Business policies

We use a green electric supplier and don’t use any artificial lights on our homegrown blooms. We also try to avoid the use of pesticides on our homegrown flowers, in fact we haven’t used any at all in the last three years. We also reuse our seed trays and pots each year and use a peat free compost.

All our quotes, contracts and invoices are sent via email to cut down on paper and energy used for printing.

Our delivery routes are planned to make sure we use the most direct route and reduce fuel emissions. 

We only offer flowers for weddings within our region, the North West of England, we don’t travel all over the country or into Europe.