Gift Ideas
For many local flower lovers, Valentine’s Day can be frustrating. The mountains of generic red roses imported from faraway lands that flood stores this time of year are uninspired and toxic for the planet and the people that harvest them. Meanwhile, early February is when most small flower farmers focus on getting greenhouses and grow lights set up for the season ahead. Few have flowers in bloom at this time of year.
But thanks partly to the increased awareness and interest in seasonal blooms, consumers have several creative ways to get their flower fix or otherwise show their love of local flowers…even in February.
Our team put together a few seasonally inspired Valentine’s Day gift ideas for the flower lover in your life:
Bouquet Subscriptions
A bouquet subscription is a great way to support local flower farms and shower someone you love with locally-grown blooms all season long. Like community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares that veggie farmers have used successfully for years, a flower subscription or bouquet CSA involves making an upfront investment in a flower farm’s harvest for the season. As a subscriber, you receive a weekly, biweekly, or monthly bouquet from a local flower farm during the growing season. Most bouquet subscriptions are available for pick-up, but some flower farms even offer delivery. Subscription rates and dates vary by region, but most run from June through September. To find flower farms or floral designers in your region who specialize in seasonal flowers and offer bouquet subscriptions, be sure to check out Floret’s Farmer-Florist Collective (viewable on a desktop computer) or the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers.
Flower-Inspired Books
I was thrilled to have the Floret book, Cut Flower Garden, highlighted in this year’s New York Times Valentines Day Gift Guide.
I also just learned that a German language edition of my book will be available online and in bookstores in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria starting February 19!
Other inspiring flower-focused titles that make great gifts include:
- In Full Flower: Inspired Designs by Floral’s New Creatives by Gemma and Andrew Ingalls
- The Flower Workshop by Ariella Chezar
- Flora Forager: A Seasonal Journal Collected from Nature by Bridget Beth Collins
- Flower House Detroit by photographer Heather Saunders features the floral art installation by the same name.
- In Bloom: Creating and Living with Flowers by Ngoc Minh Ngo
- Martha’s Flowers: A Practical Guide to Growing, Gathering, and Enjoying. Featuring tips honed over a lifetime of gardening, Martha’s newest title looks like it will be another instant classic.
- How to Window Box by Chantal Aida Gordon and Ryan Benoit. The duo behind the award-winning blog, The Horticult, now has a new book out on creating outdoor–and indoor– window boxes in colorful, fun, and inventive ways.
- Color Me Floral: Stunning Monochromatic Arrangements for Every Season by Kiana Underwood, the super-talented designer behind the Tulipina brand, has a new book coming out soon that looks stunning.
- Vegetables Love Flowers: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty by Lisa Mason Ziegler, author of the popular Cool Flowers book, looks like a practical and indispensable garden guide.
While not a flower book, the upcoming book Craft the Rainbow by the talented blogger Brittany Watson Jepsen of The House That Lars Built is sure to inspire. What started as an Instagram hashtag has become a new book full of colorful rainbow-inspired projects for the home.
