The Floral Hustle

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Hello, flower friends. This is Jen and you're listening to the Floral Hustle Podcast. On this week's mini sode, we're going to talk about five ways for you to be a more sustainable florist. Sustainability right now is a very hot topic, especially with all this weird weather. Um, I mean, it was 64 degrees here yesterday in Minnesota, which I don't think I remember that happening near Thanksgiving, um, ever, actually.

Uh, and plus, you know, like myself, if you've listened to the episode, How Being a Florist Made Me Sick, uh, the pesticides, chemicals, The, um, the chemicals that are in flower foam. A lot of different things just aren't great for us. And when you've done this for an extended amount of time, it can really take a toll on your body.

So being more sustainable is making the world a better place, but potentially could be making you better as well. So, I have five ways for you to be more sustainable. And I also came up with a free guide, because I... I think that a lot of times it's hard to even think of like, what are all the products out there?

What are the mechanics I could use to execute this job? And so the first one I want to talk about is using foam alternatives. I recently started using fiber floral. It's F I B R E floral. It looks like very similar to Agri Wool, but it's a volcanic ash based product from Oasis. And it, if you need structure like you do with something that you would normally use foam, this could be put in your compote bowl, it could be put in your arrangement, in your old cages that you're reusing.

Um, it can be wrapped in chicken wire. And it is a little bit heavier. From my experience, if I hold a brick of foam and a brick of the fiber floral, it does soak up more water, so it is heavier. And so the weight is one thing that I notice, which you always have to keep in mind with mechanics. But it also, uh, is a little bit more crumbly.

And you have to work a little bit harder to get that initial stem insertion. And if you rock your stem back and forth, it degrades your, um, ability to hold your stem in a little bit. So it does work, and I have used it for large centerpieces. I've made a full munda with, um, fiber floral when I had somebody that needed to have a sustainable design.

So it does definitely have purpose, and you can experiment. It does better, in my opinion, with smaller base stems. The second way you can be more sustainable is not just dumping all the flowers in the garbage after an event. I work with a company called Bluebirds and Blooms here in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but there are tons of different organizations like this, or you could start one yourself, that takes flowers and then recycles them.

They collect vases, they collect mason jars, and they bring them to nursing homes, memory care units, hospice units, to help just brighten up someone's day. So all of those flowers get a second life, and especially when somebody needs a little cheer, it's, it's there for them. So I donate a ton of product to them, and have found that it's very rewarding working with them, and they're very appreciative.

I helped get our local wholesaler to donate, and another local flower farmer, because I'm so passionate about the cause. Um, being that, um, you know, nursing homes aren't super fun places, and If we can brighten somebody's day, let's do it. All right. The third is locally grown flowers. One big difference obviously is we're not shipping these flowers all over and making more of a carbon footprint of our business by doing that, but the plastic and the boxes that are required when you are buying something from the wholesaler are impactful to the environment.

And when you buy locally grown, they are not sleeved whenever I have from the several different sources. So you're saving that plastic. It's normally just given to you in a bucket or you're bringing your buckets to get them. So you're saving boxes. Obviously it's just you driving there instead of getting on an airplane, getting on another airplane, getting handled by a bunch of different, them being driven by a truck.

So that is another save. For the environment, because it's just getting less of a footprint because you're not getting all those resources. Plus they're often more beautiful and, um, just something that's really going to differentiate your designs. Another is reusing containers. So I, if you've listened to, I have a rental, like my top rentals, um, and in that I talk about like how I've curated collections of rental items.

That it make it easy, it makes it easier for me to quote weddings, to pitch weddings, to think of ideas for weddings, and to execute, execute and reuse all my containers because I've streamlined these rental items that go well with each other and are just a no brainer for somebody to move forward. And reusing those items Lower the footprint because we're not putting more plastics.

We're not, you know, getting a bunch more items. We're not purchasing a bunch of items and then they're going in the trash. So we strategically, I strategically pitch people a more sustainable option with using rentals for me, like pin frog bowls. Those pin frogs also can add up from a cost perspective. So this makes it a little bit more affordable option as well.

Yeah. And. Then you're also making rental income, like that rental income can be impactful in your business and basically raise your profit margin because you've purchased these items and then you're covering that cost of the purchase with your first rental and then from there on, you're just, that extra income is only your cleaning time or cleaning expense for those containers.

So it's a win. The last item is composting. I live in a city, I live in Bloomington, Minnesota, and we have a yard waste program that I reached out to them and asked them because I don't have enough yard waste to fill a container every week. So I asked them, would they be comfortable with me putting soft stems?

Or row stems, branches, whatever it is, into the yard waste. And I did get a yes the several times I called to talk to different people, um, as well. And so I put all of my compostable, um, materials that are like yard waste into a yard waste container. I think it cost me 150 for the year, and I have the container starting in April.

I have it year round, but it's, they start picking up in April, and it goes all the way till the end of November. That is a great way to get rid of those separate types of products. And of course, then recycling your cardboard products, paper products, recycling those, any other plastic containers. Recycling those, and I have had many weddings that it has gotten out of control with the amount of, you know, stems that we're cutting, leaves that we're removing, because we have a thousand roses in the studio.

In that case, I fill plastic totes from Target with those compostable materials, and I bring them out to a local garden center. Who accepts compost materials. I have to pay, I think it's like a dollar per tub, but I bring those out there, I dump them in the pile, they turn them and bring them in to make nice big piles of dirt for however long it takes to compost those materials.

Actually, we have several garden centers here that do this, so this isn't a specific Super like rare process of them doing it and if I have a really big wedding weekend I can't siphon those things into my compost bin and I don't want to throw them in my trash so this is a really great way for you to you know, stay more eco friendly and Compost those items when things just got a little bit busier From here, please go get my, my guide.

It is at thefloralhustle. com, um, forward slash, uh, go green. And in this guide, I'm, I'm showing you every single product that is out there that I am aware of that's on the market. I didn't include TeraBricks because I just think that they're kind of weird. And I, I mean, it's just like. Making, um, one of those little mini expandable peat pots and it just was a mess.

So, every other mechanic that is out there is in this. TheFloralHustle. com, um, forward slash go green. And it is an amazing resource for you to just get familiar with everything that's out there. And try to commit to, I think so many people are like, I'm gonna either be a sustainable florist or I'm not. It isn't.

100 percent or 0 percent you can choose to meet in the middle. Like I'm going to try to have my business be more sustainable and I'm going to put this practice into place that is better than no practices. And so many floors out there feel like they have to either make this choice or not. But if we had one person going all in and being completely sustainable, or we had 10 people inching their way into being sustainable, We are going to make more headway with those 10 people, like making that step forward.

That is going to make the difference and is going to help the environment. It's going to help us as an industry evolve. And it's going to, you know, make you feel like you're doing something for the planet. And who doesn't love that? So thank you so much for listening, flower friend. And I hope you have an 📍 amazing flower filled week.