Eco-Friendly Flowers for Valentine's Day

When choosing the perfect bouquet for your Valentine this year, it may be tempting to choose the most beautiful and unblemished roses, but are those roses perfect because they are covered in pesticides? Choosing organic flowers can help you share your love in a more sustainable and eco-friendly way.

Why Organic Flowers Matter
Unless you're dancing with a rose stem in your mouth on your Valentine's date, you probably don't need to worry about ingesting the pesticides from Valentine's flowers (those non-organic strawberries in your hotel room may be a different story). So why should we care if flowers are organic?

The pesticides from your Valentine's Day flowers might not affect you or your date, but pesticide use on commercial flowers contributes to the health problems of hundreds of workers who are daily exposed to these toxins. South American workers have been especially affected; according to the International Labor Rights Fund, work-related health problems affect two-thirds of Ecuadorian and Colombian flower workers. The pesticides used at these flower farms may also affect the local groundwater or poison wildlife. Florists who regularly handle pesticide-covered flowers are also at risk. Although individual florists may have procedures to prevent pesticide exposure, there is no standard in the floral industry to ensure their safety.

How to Know if Your Flowers Are Eco-Friendly
If you live in a major city, look for local specialty florists who advertise themselves as organic or eco-friendly, and then quiz them about the source of their flowers and pesticide usage before giving them your business. You may be able to track down organic florists in your area by searching the preferred retailers at VeriFlora, a sustainability certification program for flowers and potted plants. Whole Foods florists carry a limited supply of certified organic or VeriFlora certified flowers, and the Whole Trade Guarantee is placed on flowers that meet certain standards for ethical trade and earth-friendly farming.

Online florists such as Organic Bouquet and California Organic Flowers only sell flowers that are USDA certified organic. In addition to being organic, California Organic Flowers grows all their flowers in the U.S., and Organic Bouquet imports flowers using Fair Trade practices. Mainstream flower companies offering eco-friendly options such as FTD's "Go Green Living" line should be approached skeptically if they offer no information about the origin of these flowers, or what makes them "eco-friendly." True organic florists aren't shy about explaining how their flowers are ethically sourced and environmentally friendly.