Links about sustainable floristry for ILEA panel on sustainability

At Pollen, we haven’t used floral foam in years.  You can see why here, and how (generally) here.  Briefly, floral foam is a petroleum-derived product that can’t be reused and contains formaldehyde.  Yuck.  In this post, I’ll break it down a bit more, and show how we prep our containers with chicken wire (instead of […]

One of my favorite parts of my work is being able to share my passion for flowers with others. In fact, I’m so passionate about flowers that I can’t stand to throw them out after our events! Most of our clients rent vases and candles from us, so we return at the end of the […]

We’re having fun in the studio with time lapse videos! Here, I take the mystery out of designing tall centerpieces without floral foam.  This is our first of a series of videos that will highlight eco-friendly floral design techniques!  Keep up by subscribing to our YouTube channel here.

There are some obvious ways that we at Pollen are more eco-friendly than most.  The biggies are: Working with locally grown flowers as much as possible. Not using floral foam. Our in-house flower donation program, ReBloom. Composting our leaves, stems, and other organic materials with the help of Collective Resource. One of our eco-friendly efforts […]

In my previous post, I shared why I eliminated the use of floral foam from our studio.  Now, I’d like to share how we did it, a bit generally, and I’ll add with future posts with more technical details for each type of design, geared toward florists interested in transitioning away from floral foam.  I’ll […]

I’m often asked what it means to be an eco-friendly florist. To answer the question more specifically, this is the first of a series of posts about how we are an environmentally and socially conscious florist, as well as a lot of my own thoughts about the balance between running a profitable business and being […]

I’ve often said that after a wedding or event, the flowers are only six hours older than they were at the start of the event, and they still have a lot of life left in them. As a florist, one of the more painful parts of the event industry is seeing all of our work […]

Rachel and Jason’s wedding at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum reminded me that there are many little things, easy to overlook, that we at Pollen do to minimize the ecological impact of our clients’ weddings.  Some are more obvious, liking working with locally grown flowers whenever possible.  Others are less obvious.  Here are a couple […]

Pollen is excited to be a part of the Chicago Green Wedding Alliance‘s workshop on green weddings, being held later this month. Entitled “Eco-Chic Weddings: An Event Planners’ Workshop,” the half-day workshop will highlight achievable ways that wedding planners can incorporate green elements into their weddings. Planners will leave the workshop with real, tangible ways […]