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It is peony season: the happiest time of the year! I had peonies in my wedding bouquet as I was a June bride, and they are my absolute favourites. But where is the best place to get your sustainable and ethical peonies, and other cut flowers? Let me tell you! I’ve recently discovered Arena Flowers, who are the UK’s no 1 rated ethical florist, and based near me in Milton Keynes. I ordered myself the most beautiful bouquet of peonies, and I wanted to show you how gorgeous they are.
I treated myself to a monthly ethical and sustainable flowers subscription which means that for ยฃ25 a month, I get a huge ethical delivery of flowers, and I started it this month so I could get these beautiful peonies. You can buy a similar bouquet as a hand tied bouquet for ยฃ50, or a smaller letterbox flowers version for ยฃ30. As you can see, the subscription works out at great value!
The subscription is really flexible, so you can skip as many months as you like so if you can’t justify the cost, or you’re going on holiday it’s easy to skip. They email you a reminder so you can cancel that month’s delivery.
Sustainable and Ethical Flowers Delivery
When you order your ethically-sourced, sustainable flowers, they come in an easily recycled cardboard box, with flower food in a compostable sachet. There’s an advice card with tips on how to care for your peonies. As you can see, you receive a generous amount of flowers. I got 15 peony blooms, and a good bunch of eucalyptus.
Our cat Dotty enjoyed the box, where she sat supervising me as I arranged my ethical flowers.
See How My Ethical Peonies Bloom Over a Week
My ethical flowers looked gorgeous straight out of the box, with tightly-closed buds. And I didn’t have long to wait until these ethical peonies started to bloom!
The peonies started off beautiful, and got more and more stunning every day. Even now after ten days they still look beautiful, even thought they are starting to fade a little.
So What Makes These Flowers Ethical and Sustainable?
There are loads of reasons Arena Flowers are the best ethical flowers. Here are just a few:
- There are no single-use plastics in Arena Flowers’s products, and they use organic, compostable and recyclable packaging materials.
- They plant two trees for every order placed, in countries experiencing deforestation. They have planted over 1.6 million trees so far.
- Arena Flowers are net zero carbon neutral – the world’s first carbon-neutral flower business.
- They are the first and only florist in the world to implement a closed-loop waste system. All off-cuts and stray leaves salvaged and sent to processing plants and paper mills to produce packaging materials without the need for new resources.
- Their farms use hydroponic systems, supplemented by collected rainwater, wetland water filtration schemes and greywater sourcing over traditional soil planting.
- Their headquarters is an EPC A-rated facility which harvests its greywater and is heated by sustainably-sourced woodchip pellets.
- Instead of chemical pesticides, Arena Flowers use botanical solutions and Integrated Pest Management to look after their flowers. So instead of a harsh, artificial, environment-harming chemical, they rely on other plants and natural predators like red spider mites to keep unwanted pests down.
- All flowers are sourced from ethical suppliers and Fairtrade-certified farms.
- They are ranked top on the Ethical Company Index, scoring 100/100 for the past four years.
- All staff are paid at least a real living wage.
“Weโre especially proud to be ranked as the UKโs most ethical florist, with a perfect 100 score in 2020 on the Ethical Company Index for the third year in a row. Every single stem is seasonally sourced, expertly handled and carefully packaged to ensure maximum freshness.”
Arena Flowers
Other Ethical and Sustainable Floral Gifts
Although Arena Flowers are a florist, they do have other flower-related gifts. They are perfect to buy for yourself, or for loved ones.
We ordered a beautiful bouquet from Arena Flowers for my mum for Mother’s Day and she was delighted with them. I later treated myself to a Spring Door Wreath, and loved that too.
A Flower Subscription is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
Here you’ll find links to buy your own ethical, sustainable flower subscription, or single bouquets. The floral subscriptions are very flexible. Pause, or put back your delivery if you don’t fancy the ones that fall on your week. You can also choose a pet-friendly bouquet, or an ethical-bouquet, whichever you like the look of most. And naturally you can choose non-subscription ethical flowers as a one-off treat.
I hope you’ve found my review useful. Please share it to spread the news! Pop along to Arena Flowers to see more of their beautiful ethical flowers.
