Mother's Day Flowers

Sorry Mom, Mother's Day cut flowers are bad for the environment. 

Not just Mother's Day, Valentine's Day and Memorial Day and funerals... all of these cut flowers add up to a bad cost on the environment. 

Every year the flower industry dumps thousands of tons of harmful chemical pesticides into the environment and travels thousands of miles across long distances using fossil fuels to reach the customer. The trucks must be refrigerated and that means more fuel and more carbon dioxide going into the air. All of this waste goes to making sure the flowers are almost perfect looking. 

This really makes me sad, because I love flowers and I like having flowers in my house. Of course, giving up cut flowers doesn't mean I cannot have flowers in the house. Another way to have flowers in the house is to grow them naturally. Buying seeds or plants which have been started naturally and are homegrown bring lots of beauty and color into a room. And you get the satisfaction of having grown them yourself! 

So instead of buying Mom some cut flowers this Mother's Day, buy her a plant. Or even better, go outside and plant a tree together. 

There's a popular Chinese proverb that says: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”