Hi There, Yesterday was the AFWPI (Association for Wedding Professionals Int’l) Regional Conference.  I received a call from the VP on  Monday afternoon asking me if I could put together some Organic Flower Arrangements for one of the Guest Speakers, Tara Murney, Owner of A Green Tie Affair.  Tara was speaking on the subject of Going Green, specifically her session was called “Green, The New White – How to Plan an Ecologically-friendly and Socially-Responsible Wedding”.  So, I did a quick search on www.localharvest.org, entered my zip code and voila, several organic farms showed up.  I found one that had organic flowers, Sacred Paths Farm in Camino, Ca.  I called to make sure they had flowers, and Stephanie was very helpful and accomodating.  I drove up the hill to Camino, picked up my Medicinal Bouquets and headed back to arrange them into centerpieces.  The Medicinal Bouquets included oregano, fever few, mint, valerian root, lavender, ele campagne and a few roses and delphinium and iris.  I made a TRUE NOSEGAY, using the red roses, mint, lavender and fever few.  I tied it with a lavender sheer ribbon and made a small bow right under the flowers.  I say this is a true nosegay because the history behind the nose gay bouquet go back to the time when this country was inflicted with the plague.  There were literally dead bodies in the streets, all over the streets and the smell/stinch was awful.  So women would pick scented herbs, plants and flowers and gather then into a small bouquet that they would carry under their noses so as NOT to smell the awful odors of the dead bodies in the streets.  So, going green is a good thing for our planet, but you need to know that going green sometimes will mean you won’t be able to use the specific flower type you had dreamed about because not all flowers are available as organic.  Organic means that no pesticides have been used on them; instead they are surrounded with organic fertilizer and organic pest and weed control products.  Sometimes, if organic is really important to you, you will have to go with whatever the farm can send you at the time that you need them.  You can specify a color palette and hope for the best.  I worked with a bride who wanted organic flowers and she also wanted to do her own bridal party flowers.  She ordered the flower with the colors specified, but didn’t know what she was getting until it arrived.  She asked me to use the left over flowers to decorate the reception.  I found that most of the flowers were what I would call “filler” flowers.  Lots of statice!  According to Tara Murney at The Green Tie Affair, using locally grown is also considered “green” because you are eliminating or cutting way back on the shipping/transportation costs and carbon output to get the flowers to you.  This is a very interesting subject and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more and more about it.