Combining fresh cut flowers with produce or planted centerpieces is a sustainable practice. The centerpieces may be edible (wheat grass, herbs or organic produce) or long-lasting plants, which reduces the immediate waste following an event.

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Web Exclusive :: Soulflower Interview

We’ve dubbed our Fall 2009 issue our “Light Green Issue,” because of its focus on the strides being made from flower growers to blushing brides to become more conscious of their carbon footprint. In the issue, we spoke briefly with Emily Dreblow, the owner and lead designer of Soulflower, a floral design studio in San Francisco with a sustainable focus. For our feature article, “Good Growing,” Emily gave a glimpse of her perspective on how to be stylish, creative, and still conscious of the environment. Web Editor Josie Capuano was able to lure Emily away from her work long enough to provide our readers a lingering look into the life and philosophies of a floral designer with a passion for sustainability.

Succulents provide visual interest and are easily replanted following an event to reduce waste, and can be reused for future events. Fabric remnants are repurposed from a previous event to create fabric flowers.

As a young person growing up, gardening and landscaping were pastimes of my parents, and so it was always all around me. I discovered my love and talent in high school at an internship with a high-end floral designer. I was sixteen, and I had no idea what I was getting into, but I had a great time. I’d always been very crafty, very artistic. My mother would come into my room at night and I’d be puttering around with some project. I didn’t know what it was all about until I started that internship, and suddenly, I had something to putter with. I just thought, “This is the best!”

Well, that depends on the project. I find inspiration in several places—it could be in a natural environment or in a modern one—and I often merge the two. I might take a walk and look at a tree and see something I’ve never noticed before. Or I might go into a furniture design studio and see a cool piece--or open up an industrial design magazine--and go “That’s the shape or design I’m trying to create visually.”

“Soulflower” was the title of a song I liked and the name just kind of stuck in my head. I thought, “Hey, I want to start a flower business and I want it to be a business with soul.” “Soul” can mean you’re grounded, stylish, or authentic. I feel like it conveys my wanting to be conscious of how we do our business and still be in style—because you can have eco-floral design and have no style. But I wanted to do both.

Repurposed old wine corks from a local wine shop

I worked with other designers with some interest in sustainable design, but when I got the business going myself in 2004 I decided I needed to pursue [sustainability] to the best of my ability. It’s not about competition with anyone else, but it’s my own desire to deepen my understanding of sustainability. It’s a learning process—the history of floral design was not built on the foundation of sustainability. It’s not about “unlearning” traditional floral design [techniques] but rather “re-teaching” ourselves; it’s about coming up with concepts that achieve great design with minimum impact on the earth.

Local, seasonal blooms are integrated with curly willow, which is used as base structure in lieu of floral foam.

Floral foam exists for a few main reasons: it provides structure to build the floral arrangement, it holds stems in place, and can be fit to any vessel. [However, being a sustainable designer] I try to say goodbye to floral foam when at all possible. Of course, it’s a creative challenge because we’re designing more sculptures than ever before. We’re using vines, willow, and other produce to create structure instead of foam. For floral spheres—like those pretty carnation balls that are popular for events—we “pick” the flowers (wire them to floral picks) and use hearty produce with the shape that we desire as the sphere, instead of floral foam.

Exactly. Like I said, it’s a creative challenge because we’re still developing [techniques] in terms of sizes and shapes we want to create, but vines or hearty produce are good alternatives to floral foam for providing structure.

Usually my favorites are the more sculptural flower installations, not just a small centerpiece. With installations we’re raising the bar with what is possible, both in terms of design and technical aspects. I love to push boundaries with my installations and to have the end result done in a way that has low or no impact on the environment.

Can you tell the difference? Hearty produce, in lieu of Styrofoam or floral foam, provides shape and structure for this carnation and spider mum floral sphere.

There are a few key components I encourage people to think about when it comes to flowers:

• Choose seasonal and local flowers for your arrangement and choose organic, if possible.
• Integrate fruits and vegetables into your arrangements.
• Use plants as centerpieces—they’re long lasting.
• Repurpose things. Say you’re setting a table and have a vineyard-themed party. Go to your local wine shop and collect their old wine corks.
• Look at conventional objects and use them as a design element: Old jars are great examples. Create a lighted tree for your event by hanging old baby food jars with tea lights inside.
• Repurpose household or business fabric scraps. We make fabric flowers all the time.

Absolutely. We’re always integrating texture, not just pods and succulents, but fabric flowers, too. And that’s another great idea—use succulents as your centerpiece. You can easily replant succulents. Our customers love that aspect.

Integrating dramatic natural elements, such as light brown grapewood against burgundy linen, creates strong visual impact and picks up on the buttercup underside of the Leonida rose petal and the wheat tips.

There are a couple facets to that. From a donation aspect, we offer a transport service for clients wishing to do donations of leftover flowers. We inform clients that, for a nominal fee, we’ll transport day-old arrangements and their containers from the event and donate them to the community. We also sponsor fundraisers and give flowers all the time.

The second aspect is our partnership with some community youth programs. Soulflower employs young people to help at the studio, and sometimes it’s their first job. They are supervised and learn both the soft and hard job skills necessary in the working world. They learn everything—from how to fill out a time sheet and communicate with a supervisor to how to fill a water bucket.

It’s an arrangement that really helps everyone. Many of the organizations I’m working with—like the ones I’ve partnered with for the youth program—I worked with years ago. It’s a collaboration of foundation funds and city and state funds to pay the youth for their work. Soulflower gets some extra assistance from these youth, and in the meantime, these young people get paid and learn marketable skills. Everybody wins.

My commitment to the community has been part of my life since I was very young. Throughout college, I was working with flowers, but I was also pursuing a degree in Urban Studies. I always wanted to be involved with the community in some way through the work that I was doing, and I’ve always wanted to be able to give back to where I came from. It was a fun realization to stumble across—that I can pursue both passions.

Pick up the current issue to read more about flower lovers who share Emily’s enthusiasm for flowers, community, and sustainable business. You can find out “Light Green Issue” on newsstands this month.

Fall 2009 | By Josie Capuano, Photos by Emily Payne and Jerry Yoon