Green Wedding Experts Blog

The Art of Design with the Science of Sustainability

Blogs: Flowers

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - 09:13

If you are looking for a floral designer using sustainable practices, look no further than Faxon Green! Based out of Boston on famed Newbury Street, this floral designer is known as the maven of eco-elegance in Boston. She has a unique approach to combining the art of design with the science of sustainability in her studio and in her floral designs. Faxon is an artist. She sees a centerpiece as a painting or sculpture. In designing each bouquet, she "follows" the flowers and foliage, rather than "imposing" it. This gives variety and spontaneity to her arrangements. She says the flowers "tell" her what to do. Her love of sumptuous colors and textures gives her work a richness and "surprise".

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In 2004 she was hired by The Mind Life Institute to design all the arrangements for the Dalai Lama’s week long stay in Boston. Everything was filled with sunflowers, the universal flower of friendship. 17,000 people got to see the Dalai Lama surrounded by 500 sunflowers harvested from two local farms using non-pesticide soils. It was a truly amazing event and changed Faxon’s perspective. She began her floral design work for events, which eventually led to weddings!

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Everything at Faxon Green is recycled and composted. No floral foam or plastic is ever used. Vases are always recycled after a wedding! Only living elements such as glass, pottery, rocks, metal (mainly copper,) wood and vines are used as decorative elements in the vases. All unused living elements are composted. All of the tools are cleaned with water and witch hazel and no abrasive chemical cleaners are used. If there are flowers leftover from a wedding that have not been given to guests, Faxon Green donates them to local women’s shelters and hospitals.

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To minimize the carbon footprint of transporting flowers, Faxon uses flowers grown in the US and eastern Canada as much as possible rather than getting them flown from the world market in Amsterdam. Flowers from Amsterdam have been grown somewhere in the world, such as calla lilies from New Zealand. They are flown to Amsterdam to be auctioned off to distributors each day. This is a huge cost of their carbon footprint! Faxon uses the caveat that she is not a "purist" yet. While she has done flowers for weddings that are completely eco-based, there are others where the exact flower a bride wants comes from another country and does go through Amsterdam.

Faxon Green is your one stop floral design studio for aesthetically pleasing, eco-elegant flowers. Grown and handled without harsh pesticides, these flowers are used in colorful green weddings all over the Boston area and beyond!