Slow Flowers Movement Pushes Local, U.S.-Grown Flowers

BY MARGERY A. BECK ON FEB 11, 2015
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rhonda Bullington, owner of Loess Hills Floral Studio in Council Bluffs, Iowa, makes a flower arrangement in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. The vast majority of cut flowers used in florists'' bouquets are imported and Bullington says she hasn''t had any customers asking for locally-grown flowers. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Photo credit: The Associated Press

Megan Hird, owner of Farmstead Flowers, poses for a photo in the greenhouse on her property in Bruning, Neb., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015. As Americans look for ways to show they care this Valentine''s Day, flower industry experts anticipate more of them will eschew bouquets of imported flowers for those grown right here in the U.S. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Photo credit: The Associated Press

BRUNING, Neb. (AP) — Come February, the owners of Farmstead Flowers begin nurturing seedlings and preparing three acres for their cash crop reaped from April through October — cut flowers.

Megan Hird and her husband founded their rural southeast Nebraska business in 2012 and are among the growing number of "farmer florists" intent on providing consumers the option to buy local — much as the slow food movement has sought to increase the use of locally grown, sustainable food.

About 80 percent of the cut flowers used in florists' bouquets are imported, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. But flower industry experts anticipate that heading into Valentine's Day, more people will eschew bouquets of imports for American blooms.

There's been a recent — if small — rebound in the number of cut-flower growers in the U.S., from 5,085 in 2007 to 5,903 in 2012. The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers recently reported an all-time high of 700 members, the majority of which are based in the U.S.

The shift is two-fold, according to Debra Prinzing, a Seattle-based outdoor living expert who operates Slow Flowers, an online directory of florists, wedding and event planners and growers who use stateside flowers.

"I think a lot of it is just this rejection of the more structural bouquets — the flowers that are the Dirty Dozen, the same-old, same-old," Prinzing said. "The romance of a meadow or a cottage-garden flower or an heirloom flower is really penetrating the consciousness of floral designers."

There's also a rising consciousness about the carbon footprint caused by the distance from which flowers are shipped, "just the same as it is with food," she said. Critics of the flowers grown in South America and other places say those countries often don't employ fair labor practices and that the flowers are often coated with chemicals to preserve them for a long journey.

A spokeswoman for the Association of Floral Importers of Florida — based in Miami, where more than 90 percent of imported flowers enter the country — said they're using outdated information. While Colombia's and Ecuador's industries used questionable labor practices and pesticides years ago, they are now heavily regulated and have minimum wage requirements and bans on certain chemicals, Christine Boldt said.

South America is the most hospitable environment