Being a florist, it’s not the most eco-friendly career to have…something that has plagued me since I began in the business, but,  I try my best to make it better and I thought you might like to know how.

There has been a lot of focus in the floristry industry recently on the #nofloralfoam movement, this simply means not using foam to create arrangements, mainly because it doesn’t decompose.  I’ve never really liked using foam because of this reason, and I also believe flowers don’t last as long as they can when they’re in good old fashioned water, but, being a florist in the wedding industry, I’m guilty of using it…

We do a lot of designs here at Lily Blossom that don’t involve foam, mainly jam jars, vases, bottles etc that flowers can happily sit in and look gorgeous on a table…but I thought I’d try an actual arrangement. I first taped up the bowl below and this gave me a grid to fill with flowers…

Next, I started filling, I find with this style of arranging it will tend to be quite a loose natural flowing style…ALTHOUGH…I’m sure with the grid you could also do compact tight arrangements (I actually just thought that as I was typing)!

Now please bear in mind, these are all old flowers out of my waste bucket…not particularly my colour scheme or choice of flowers…but we’ve got to start somewhere…

Let me know what you think…

Secondly, I’ve never massively promoted my attempts at not using foam, recycling, composting our green, re-using anything I can (some people would call this hoarding), as I don’t really believe it should be a sales tactic…it should just be…you should just do it!!

BUT…it’s come to my attention that I should be promoting these things…or that, some people might find this interesting?! Lots of flowers come in wrapped in elastic bands…bands that I just can’t throw away, my arm won’t actually let me…so they’ve been kept (hoarded) in our cellar, and I’ve wracked my brains for 5.5 years now, with what to do with them… (the chains are an attempt at a skirt for the mannequin)! 

So apart from the obvious of elastic band balls…I started knitting, (not started knitting, I’ve always knitted, just not with elastic). I’m thinking a shopping bag?!

Next up I’ll tell you about our composting, paper recycling, how to re-use your flower wrapping for gifts and…erm…plastic netting baubles…now I’ve got you interested!