Changing the World with Flowers
Who doesn’t like receiving fresh flowers? The ephemeral beauty of a bouquet can elicit a smile, make you cry or warm up the heart, but can it change the world? That is what Chloé Roy of Floramama proposes.
Floramama is a local and organic flower farm located in Frelishburg in the Eastern Townships in Quebec. Operating on a subscription model similar to community-supported agriculture (CSA), Floramama offers sustainable cultivated and wild flowers, operating under principles which maintains the health and structure of the soil and promotes species biodiversity.
The majority of commercially available flowers have a heavy environmental impact. Flowers grown in places as distant as Africa and South America, are shipped all over the World by planes using fossil fuels and releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. Furthermore, these huge monocultures use vast amounts of pesticides, herbicides and other chemical inputs, affecting ecosystems and local populations.
In contrast, a bouquet from Floramama, which may include poppies, zinnias, wallflowers, godetias, lisianthus, eucalyptus, anemones and ranunculus, will not only elicit a moment of ephemeral poetry but also promotes a vision of agriculture which respects the environment.
Strongly influenced by the biointensive human-scale model of such farms as Floret Flowers in the US and Les Jardins de la Grelinette in St-Armand, Quebec, Chloé Roy shows that a diversified agriculture on a small acreage can not only be sustainable and profitable, but can offer farmers a great quality of life. Active on Instagram at @lesjardinsfloramama, Chloé shares the astounding beauty of her flowers but also reveals an inspiring lifestyle that brings together expertise, creativity and joie de vivre. So why not enliven your home with the fleeting beauty of fresh blooms this summer?
Chloé Roy is the founder of Floramama and a mother of 3.
