by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

In Roman mythology, Cupid is the son of Venus, goddess of love, a mischievous boy who goes around wounding hearts with his arrows, causing people to fall in love. So that explains it! Love can hurt, but giving flowers to show it doesn’t have to.

Just say no. To buying conventional flowers today. Most (78 - 90%) of cut flowers travel from Latin American, are grown with chemicals and pesticides that harm the soil, the water and the workers that farm them. And they are messing with the bee population. Show a more creative side of love this Valentine’s Day.

Try appealing to other senses. Just about anything delectably edible will do. Local wine, fair trade olive oil, nuts and organic chocolate are always a treat. Make a bouquet of edible greens for the table. And skip the store-bought cards on virgin paper while you’re at it. Make your own from scrap to save a tree and avoid adding to the growing mountain of paper waste in the landfills. Or, express your love with sidewalk chalk.

Before the massive outsourcing trend of, well, just about everything - you could find healthy flowers at a locally-owned shop right in your neighborhood. When looking for planet and people friendly flowers, ask your local florist or try these sources:

Veriflora.com, Localharvest.org

Tags: activism, culture

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 8:41 am and is filed under Green Misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.