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I’m Margaret Renkl. I write about the flora, fauna, politics, and culture of the American South.
I have written about nature, not specifically about the environment for most of my life, but I started focusing more and more on the environment as the news about the environment got grimmer and grimmer.
I have mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day, but it is sweet. I’ve been married for 35 years. So the surprise valentines are a dim memory for me, but my husband and I do celebrate. We go out to dinner, or we write a sweet note or a card, but we don’t have roses in the house.
Valentine’s is problematic for me because of the flowers from an environmental standpoint. Cut flowers are an environmental crime. If we think about the real purpose of flowers, flowers aren’t beautiful for our delight. Although, we take great delight in their beauty.
Flowers exist because they attract bees and butterflies. And it’s the way the plant ensures its future. So I think if we move on from flowers as a gift and think instead about flowers in their role in this deeply interconnected environment we share. And so I wrote an essay about what I think about the cut flower industry.
If you haven’t yet ordered flowers, you’ve likely waited too long. Valentine’s Day accounts for some percent of annual cut flower sales, more than the holiday season does, more than even Mother’s Day. So it’s very likely that all the florists in town are already booked.
You’ll have better luck at your local grocery or big box store, but you’re kidding yourself if you think this gesture won’t be recognized for what it is. Nothing says, I forgot Valentine’s Day quite like a plastic wrapped bucket from $1 by the checkout line at Target.
Really, it’s just as well. The cut flower industry is massive. In 2022, it was valued around $36 billion. And while it isn’t the most environmentally criminal of all commercial enterprises, it’s far from benign.
Cultivating unblemished flowers requires liberal applications of insecticides and herbicides. And many of those poisons enter the water system, not to mention the skin and lungs of agricultural workers. The floral foam commonly used in cut flower arrangements is yet another contaminant, leaching toxic chemicals into the water supply and creating microplastic pollution in waterways.
Then there’s transportation. Most commodity flowers, including percent of the cut flowers, sold in the United States are grown in the global South and transported to customers in Europe and North America, but not by container ship. Flowers are fragile and highly perishable and must be transferred by refrigerated jets and then by refrigerated trucks.
If all this is news to you, you may be feeling a certain amount of despair. Isn’t there anything left that we’re allowed to view with unalloyed joy? If not a bouquet of bright flowers in the dead of February, then what? Fortunately, there are many ways to say I love you that don’t also say, I don’t really care that much about the planet. I’m a big fan of love letters and walks in the moonlight myself.
If you have your heart set on giving flowers or flower adjacent gifts, you could consider paper flowers. I’ve seen gorgeous handmade peonies that I couldn’t tell from the real thing or a nice house plant might work. The environmental impact of the domestic houseplant market isn’t benign either, but there’s still a big difference between domestically grown houseplants and imported flowers and not just in the relative carbon cost of transportation.
Houseplants aren’t discarded two days after Valentine’s Day. I have a ficus tree that I bought for my first college apartment. Over the 40 years, since I brought it home, it has moved with me to Philadelphia, South Carolina, and four Nashville homes, Birnam Wood, to Dunsinane, to Nashville.
But the best alternative I would argue is a local flower farm, ideally one that operates according to regenerative farming principles. It’s possible to support sustainable flowers through gift cards, farmers markets, or a Community Supported Agriculture subscription, also known as a CSA. A flower CSA works much like a produce CSA.
Often, the flowers are fragile heirloom varieties that would never survive a trip from South America. It takes a little more thought and a little more planning to send flowers or plants and paper flowers another way. It might cost a little more too. Think about it, though, if you really need to save money or time. it’s a lot faster and a lot cheaper to write a heartfelt letter and go for a walk in the moonlight, but if you want to give your beloved a botanical gift, why not make it a gift to the planet too?
