Flower power: finding an environmentally conscious florist is worth the trouble.

Since flowers and plants are, at their roots, products of nature, conscientious consumers tend to consider them a dependably green buy. Why wouldn't a floral shop purchase be environmentally benign? After all, florists deal in the currency of nature, sending bits and pieces of it home with flower lovers in arrangements, wreaths, garlands, potted plants and more.

Walking through any one of America's roughly 41,000 floral shops can feel like a stroll through a nature preserve, complete with the perfumes of flowers and moist soil. Yet, the colors and scents in the nearly $13-billion-a-year floral business can be deceiving. Ironically, purchasing Earth-friendly flowers from an environmentally sensitive florist can be a tough assignment unless you know what to look and ask for.

Flowers are a nature-based business, so what's the problem? First, although many of us are willing to accept a few spots on our apples to keep them chemical-free, florists and commercial growers say we're much more hesitant to accept imperfections in our cut flowers and potted plants. And petal-perfect produce comes to us at a hefty price to the environment.

Floral industry experts agree--and studies show--that on a per-acre basis, the intensive, high-input growing practices generally used in floriculture expose the environment to more pesticides than any other agricultural industry. Flower growers are also allowed to use a larger number of more potent pesticides than growers raising food crops. And many United States-produced and banned pesticides come back to us on imported cut flowers.

Florists, like all other retailers, are deluged by a flood of competitively priced, but often not-so-green products. Staples provoking some environmental ambiguity in the floral biz include: a host of non-recyclable plastic containers, accessories, packaging materials and rigid foams; synthetic fabric flowers, foliages and ribbons; balloons, paints and dyes; plus floral preservatives and disinfectants. Finally, florists daily confront conservation issues in handling shop, stock, and vehicle maintenance as well as waste.

Unfortunately, just as many florists are becoming more aware of environmental issues and primed to make significant changes in their product selection and business practices, competition has grown fierce. The traditional floral shop, sequestered on the edge of a maturing residential neighborhood, now competes with mass-market grocery store floral departments, hobby shops, department stores, street vendors and import wholesalers with storefronts. In a business environment in which every dime counts, many florists are loath to spend extra on shop greening. Still, there's a growing number of progressive shop owners discovering that being environmentally proactive makes a long-term difference not only in savings, but in sales.

Forward-thinking Florists

A designer and floral shop owner for over a decade, Melinda Brown stocks environmentally sound indoor and outdoor gardening supplies and provides standard floral services at her Rolling Hills Estates, California shop called La Fleur. Brown's specialty is "earthy organics"; her arrangements often incorporate fallen branches, bark and plant trimmings she collects. Containers are typically reuseable baskets or glass vases accented with natural-fibered ribbons. To keep her flowers fresh, she substitutes a homemade sugar water recipe for commercial floral preservative solutions.

Purchases leave La Fleur wrapped simply in unbleached kraft paper tied with twine. Brown recycles shop waste, sends her organic waste out to compost-savvy gardeners and reuses flower bucket water outdoors on bedding plants.

Besides providing information gratis, Brown encourages flower lovers to return by giving price breaks on new purchases in exchange for the return of serviceable vases, ribbons and pots. Her latest challenge is in finding a steady supply of organically grown cut flowers,

Searching for an efficient use of floral organic waste in Seattle, Sten Crissey, president of Crissey Flowers & Gifts, organized an area-wide, floral-waste composting program he's dubbed Floracycle. Participating in the program, florists deliver their organic wastes in biodegradable paper bags to a central dumpster emptied by Cedar Grove Composting Company. The floral scraps, along with the bags, are shredded and added to other trimmings to produce dark, rich, high-purity humus sold through garden stores. Thanks to the high heat naturally generated in the composting process, pesticide residues break down. In one six-month period, Floracycle diverted roughly 35 tons (that's 175 Toyota pickup loads) of floral waste out of the landfill stream and saved florists a collective total of $2,000 in dumping fees.

Carol Caggiano, owner of Glen Head Flower Shop in Glen Head, New York was dismayed at seeing thousands of paperboard rose boxes leave her shop each year, headed ultimately for the local landfill. To remedy the situation, she places explanatory cards with a recycling symbol in each outgoing box, encouraging her customers to return serviceable boxes and water tubes in exchange for a free rose. The program is so popular, the shop's yearly box consumption has been cut by two thirds. Caggiano's green efforts extend further into reusing and recycling everything from flower stem trimmings to packing peanuts.

In Dallas, third-generation florist Lisa Carren Graubard, owner of Carren's Flowers, runs her business with a sharp environmental eye. "My parents taught me to respect nature and conserve resources," says Graubard. "And now my two daughters give me another reason. Our recycling efforts at home quickly multiplied and carried over into the shop." Besides recycling cardboard, glass, aluminum, tin and more, Graubard purchases reconditioned baskets, clay pots, and glass and plastic containers from a local floral goods salvager. The shop's organic wastes are composted and the humus given gratis to Graubard's gardening neighbors.

Look, Ask and Listen

No florist is perfect, but it's worthwhile looking for a shop that's making an effort. If the owner isn't advertising his/her environmental efforts, make your own observations in a visit to the shop and ask questions:

* Does the owner compost organic waste? Recycle? Offer price breaks in exchange for the return of reuseable design components? Conserve energy? Target direct mail accurately to avoid waste? Use Earth-friendly cleaners and products with recycled paper content?

* Are flower arrangements simply constructed? A green shop "precycles" by keeping to a minimum such items of packaging as: plastic accessories, wire, rigid foams, waxed tissues, foil wrap, paints, adhesives, tape, synthetic ribbons, flowers, foliages and balloons. Instead, look for unbleached kraft and recycled paper wrap, true cellophane, ribbon made from natural fibers, reuseable glass marbles and decorative rock and pins replacing floral foam as flower anchors. Is the design container made of durable, biodegradable, reuseable and/or recyclable materials?

* Are the flowers organically, locally and/or farm grown? Few florists have access to a year-round supply of organically grown stock, but the number of organic farms is growing and within the next few years there should be a larger selection of truly green flowers on the market. Locally, or at least domestically produced, goods are energy conservers since they are shipped much shorter distances. And farm-grown floral materials are generally preferable to those harvested from the wild. If your arrangement includes artificial flowers or foliage, are they durable and made of natural fibers like paper, linen, canvas or cotton? Are the paints or dyes non-toxic? By asking questions like these, you can ensure that your purchase of natural beauty is not contributing to its loss.

Helpful Resources

* La Fleur, 550 Deep Valley Drive, No. 217, Rolling Hills Estate, CA 90274/[phone].

* Crissey Flowers & Gifts, 2100 Fifth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121/[phone].

* Glen Head Flower Shop, 719 Glen Cove Avenue, Glen Head, NY 11545/ [phone].

* Carren's Flowers, 4314 Lover's Lane, Dallas, TX 75225/[phone].

MELISSA DODD ESKILSON is an independent journalist who frequently writes on environmental floriculture industry.