At Shifting Blooms, we believe in making our environmental impact as small as possible and doing our part to keep our environmental impact low. In the spirit of transparency, here’s a list of things we do to lessen our impact, and some disclaimers about the amount of spraying we do.
Ways We Help
We garden with what I like to call a minimum-till method. We till the soil when we first make a bed, but after that we only use a hand-powered garden claw to prep the beds in spring. This still keeps the soil structure, but allows us to work in the amendments we add every year.
For amendments, we use H-Start, wool pellets, manure, and leaves.
In addition to our annuals, we continue to plant perennials and native plants specifically for our pollinator friends. Since I’ve started gardening on this property, the amount of pollinators and good bugs in the soil has substantially increased.
Our (Mostly-no) Spraying Practices
Our flowers are almost never sprayed with chemicals, however, there are a few exceptions. The bug pressure on dahlias is intense, and I have not found a reliable organic way to keep away the thrips that will destroy the whole crop. While I will continue to cover with mesh bags and work on my Brix levels, the dahlias in your bouquet may have been sprayed.
Peonies, snapdragons, and lilacs are also intensely loved by thrips, and I will occasionally spray them off-site and rinse them, especially if they are going in a wedding bouquet.
If you are ever concerned about if a flower is sprayed or not, please let me know and I will tell you. Also, if you are ordering a bucket of blooms that will be going on a cake or other dessert, please let me know so I can offer only flowers that haven’t been sprayed.
Moving Towards Foam Free Florals
One of my big goals since starting the flower farm was to able to ditch the floral foam. While there have been some learning curves in getting used to chicken wire and AgraWool, I now feel confident enough to offer their use in all of my arrangements.
I still will use traditional foam for my large arch pieces as I had some troubles with breakage last season, but will work on figuring out my errors so I can be entirely foam free by 2027.
Our Use of Plastics
Plastic is everywhere in the gardening industry, and we have been slowly trying to decrease our usage. We invest in heavy-duty seeding trays so that we can reuse that plastic for as many years as possible. In 2026, we are switching to 80% soil blocking. This allows us to further reduce the amount of plastic we use as we expand our farm, as it allows us to use less trays.
Our wraps are unfortunately made of plastic, as they are waterproof. However, we reuse as many as possible, as they are quite easy to clean.