R5 Certified

We love designing with flowers everyday! However, with that love comes a responsibility to our environment. 

Going green has become a main focus for many businesses as it is a concern for many consumers. While we have been environmentally conscious for years,  this year we achieved the Johnson County, KS Government's “R5 Certification”. The R5 Certified Program works to educate and provide assistance on many different environmental issues to businesses, schools, and places of worship in Johnson County. The program's main goal is to increase recycling, improve energy efficiency and decrease waste.

Below are the five R’s and how each one applies to us:

1. REinvest in your company, community, economy and future.     Any extra flowers or left over arrangements we have in the shop never go to waste! Our neighbors and local business love receiving a surprise floral delivery. Supporting our local growers is very important to us and we look forward to seeing what they have to offer every week!
2. REthink your business process, how you manage resources and your purchasing power.     While we still have to order flowers and supplies from other vendors we also take advantage of the gardens here at our shop and home. Anytime we can use foliage or blooms that we have growing right here in our gardens we do.
3. REduce consumption, waste and your environmental impact.     All of our floral waste becomes mulch rather than trash in the landfill. Before throwing anything in our trash cans we make sure it can't be composted or recycled first. We also use a lot of water around here, flowers and plants rely on it! But instead of pouring leftover water from our buckets down the drain, we haul them outside to the garden. 
4. REuse products and consciously buy reusables.     All of our containers, jugs, and buckets are reused. Either for deliveries and transportation to designing arrangements to floral storage in our cooler. We also keep any plastic bags or tissue paper for filler.
5. REcycle as a last resort and buy recycled products to support a closed-loop system.     Instead of using the plastic card holders in our arrangements we use dried rose stems. We also have an abundance of scrap ribbon at awkward lengths that is perfect for tying at the top of these stems. Instead of ordering brand new things we love being able to buy vintage pieces that we can put a whole new life into at our shop. Some of our favorite things are vintage mason jars that can become vases and silver trays that we use to deliver and display boutonnieres.

Dried rose stems are much more environmently friendly than the typical plastic picks.

A simple brown box is great for transporting multiple vases or even one arrangement (nobody wants spilled flowers and water all over their car!).

Once the flowers have been used any extra water is poured into our gardens.

We compost as much as possible.

We buy from local growers whenever we can.

You can learn more about the R5 program here.