Sunday, September 30, 2007

Flowers and plants for your home

I'm reading, Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure, although not quite fast enough to keep up with the blog. One thing the struck me was recommendation to buy fresh cut flowers every week. I do occasionally buy cut flowers but I'm usually disappointed that within a few days they start wilting and by the end of the week I have a brown smelly mess to deal with. I realize that if I changed the water everyday I might have better luck but...life's to short.

Also there's the issue of the use of pesticides on many cut flowers and the distance some flowers have to travel to get to your local supermarket. Danny Seo did a blog entry about this suggesting buying from organic resources like Organic Bouquet or using garden flowers for those who have gardens.

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I like to buy orchids from Trader Joe's here in southern California. I picked up these for $7.99 each and they last for months. All I have to do is water them on the weekends. I got one for Valentine’s Day and it still looked perfect in June. Now, I don't know green these plants are or where they are from. So on my to do list is to start researching house plants and looking for an organic supplier. Perhaps instead of buying cut flowers every week I'll buy a new plant every couple of months.

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Here's what I have waiting on my bedside table:
How to Grow House Plants, Sunset Editors
How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office, B. C. Wolverton

Let us know if you know of any other good books or resources.

2 comments:

Tracy said...

love orchids. i have started buying a weekly bouquet from our local farmer's market. i know the grower is less than an hour from my home, and that i support her organic gardening style. i usually try to pick something hearty - and so far so good. i get throug the week, then off to the composter it goes...

(love the wolverton book!)

Anonymous said...

ah. fantastic idea. i buy flowers from farmers market on most weekends. and yes, me too hate to see them wither away.
orchid sounds great. but dont you need some special care? or at least, that's how i remember. once a week watering sounds good to me, since i forget all the time. :)