Ecology, NOT ONLY on a flower farm

Let’s be honest, growing flowers on a global scale isn’t eco-friendly at all. Besides cheap labor, it often exploits natural resources like water and fertile soil in countries where they are scarce.

Flowers from distant destinations have to fly to the Dutch auction and then travel by truck across Europe. Many of them need heating in winter and cooling in summer. This whole “cycle” was one of the reasons why we decided to grow our own flowers a bit differently.

So, let’s get specific.

1. For pre-growing, we try to use trays that we buy anyway—for example, from meat. For larger seeds, we purchased a soil blocker developed by a clever flower farmer; it creates soil blocks that you then transplant directly into the ground with the sprouted seedlings.
2. We don’t use heating for seedlings or other plants. So far, we manage everything at home, and if there’s no threat of heavy frost, we keep everything in the greenhouses in the garden.
3. This year, we will also be using water from a retention tank for irrigation.
4. We avoid chemical sprays and fertilizers.
5. We collect our own seeds for the next season.
6. All healthy plant remains are turned into compost.

We choose suppliers for plants we can’t grow ourselves from the local area or within the Czech Republic. This also applies to our other colleagues, friends, and suppliers you can meet at our events.

In conclusion, it’s important to say that acting ecologically doesn’t mean we are 100% successful in everything, or that it’s always possible in every respect. What we find most important is to think about it and try. To try as best as we can.

Maybe buy a beautiful fresh bouquet from someone you actually know, instead of a flower that has a week of travel behind it. Like here at Kraffer’s Garden.