We've been hearing a lot about the "Green" movement lately. Reduce, reuse, recycle....it's hard to argue against. But what's the big deal, shouldn't we be doing all that stuff anyway? I mean, it's just common sense.

If you've been following our blog, you have seen how flowers get shipped from all over the world directly to Tiger Lily daily. You've seen they arrive in cardboard boxes. We get between 100-200 boxes weekly. That's a lot of boxes! We could either put them in our trash dumpster, leave them for weekly garbage pick-up destined to a landfill, or recycle them. Obviously we recycle them.

We built an enclosure to hide them from view, and take them to the Romney Street Recycling Center about twice a week. Above is a photo of Taylor loading them into a van. It's not too bad unless the boxes are wet and it's a 100 degrees outside, then it's a drag. Sometimes we'll have to take three vanfuls to get them all there!

Our newest step in the "Green" movement is composting our spent blooms and foliage. We've talked about composting for years. The greens and flowers we use are the best available. They have been meticulously planted, nurtured and harvested. Imagine what an incredible compost they would make. The problem was the volume! It takes a couple months to breakdown the material in to compost. By then we would have a mountain of cut flowers and greens. We just couldn't accommodate it all.

To start , we've been piggybacking on the composting project on Kiawah Island. Kiawah is a world class resort island. It is also fanatically environmentally conscience. Featuring scenic marsh savannas, bobcats, alligators, egrets and dolphins, Kiawah is a natural gem. Even the home owners feature low-impact landscaping; less imported azaleas and more natural scrub palmettos. It's a really cool look.

We provide virtually all the flowers for the resorts and country clubs on the island. Wednesday is the day we switch them out. Here Robin Smith, our Corporate Contract Floral Director is placing some of last week's flowers in the composting area near Night Heron Park. Nice sunglasses. The stuff still looks great in the photo, but will only be presentable for a day or two. Imagine the nutrients in those greens. This compost should be the bomb!

I really hopes this leads to more composting of our used flowers and greens. I've thought about buying a chipper and running all of our flower waste through it to expedite the process. We've thought about giving away the chipped stems as ground cover. Again the high volume we would create is the challenge. Still, a first step is a good start. We will see where it leads. If anyone has any insight as to how we could compost the large amount of flowers and greens we generate, please give me a call pronto at 843-723-2808. It's not too late to save the planet!