Floral designers pick local over big carbon footprint

Every Sunday, Jane Cespuglio goes to dinner at her parents' house in Richboro. She's there to see family, of course, but she's also on a mission: to plunder her dad's one-acre garden.

Like "wildcrafters" in the wilderness foraging for dandelion greens and blackberries, Cespuglio plucks the old man's grapevines and zinnias, basil and rosemary - literally whatever she can get her hands on and around. Later, she transforms them into tabletop arrangements and hand-tied bouquets for Fleurish, the floral design business she started this fall with her sister, Susan Cespuglio-Bigler.

It's a simple idea, born partly out of necessity, given that they're new, small, and operating (legally) out of Cespuglio's rowhouse in East Falls. Lacking a storefront, they do events only - weddings, baby showers, fund-raisers and such - and they're all about being "green."

A tired term, to be sure. Every business owner knows "green" is the way to go in 2009. But in an industry known for its far-flung sources and horrendous carbon footprint, here comes a pledge that whenever possible, the flowers will be locally grown and in season or certified VeriFlora, U.S. Department of Agriculture organic, or Fair Trade, designations that ensure good growing practices and ethical treatment of workers.

"We're completely committed to this," says Cespuglio, 36, Fleurish's design director.

More florists are moving in this direction, dubbed "eco-chic" by Sharon McGukin, president-elect of the American Institute of Floral Designers, out of a desire to "be better caretakers of our world and its living parts."

"Instead of what is fastest, easiest, most unique, we are considering what is best," she says.

Though it isn't called "wildcrafting," there's also "a growing interest in using textural materials, such as grasses, herbs, leaves, berries, and vines, in unique designs," says McGukin, of Carrollton, Ga., a floral designer for 35 years.

The term "wildcrafting" is thought to have originated long ago in England as "wildcrofting." In this country it became popular in Appalachia in the 1930s, when people collected things in the wild for food, medicinal purposes or crafts, for personal use, or to sell, according to Ila Hatter, a self-described "interpretive naturalist" who collects in her garden and on hundreds of wooded acres behind her home in Bryson City, N.C.