Here at botanica floral design we combine our passion for flowers with our passion for the environment to create designs that are both beautiful and gentle on our planet.

There is so much waste produced and many dangerous chemicals used in the commercial floral industry that we decided to strive towards building a sustainable, ecologically sensitive, socially conscious and non-toxic floral service.

botanica is a chemical free environment and all vases, buckets and floral tools are cleaned and sanitized with natural products. We compost all qualifying living material and we re-cycle everything that we can. We do our best to recycle and reuse vases and also carry a large selection of vases made from recycled glass along with vintage vases and containers.  We try not to use floral foam whenever possible. Floral foam is petrolium based, made using formaldehyde and not bio-degradable.

Why Organic?

I get a lot of people asking me..."what's not green about flowers?"

First of all,the majority of the cut flowers sold in the US are grown in Cental America. It takes about a week for a rose to get from Columbia or Equador to your florist or supermarket. All the travel and extended refrigeration creates a very large carbon footprint.

And unbenownst to most people, the cut flower industry uses enormous amounts of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, miticides, and fungicides(many of which are banned here in the US and Canada) in the growing and processing of cut flowers. Not only is this extremely harmful to our environment but it poses many health risks to the workers who grow, tend, cut and package these flowers. On top of this, working conditions in these countries can be dangerous, unhealthy and exploitive.

Luckily for us, we have many local growers to choose from; some organic, some sustainable and some conventional. Our first choice is always local! California grows a lot of high quality flowers and we will source what we can't get here from California, mainly from two 'Veriflora' certified sustainable growers. We sometimes buy flowers from Central America and Canada but always look for the Veriflora certification.

Most of our flowers are either locally, sustainably or organically grown and/or certified as USDA Organic or certified sustainable byVeriflora and the Rain Forest Alliance.

Copyright © 2011  Botanica Floral Design       Portland OR503.358.4687

Veriflora is an agricultural sustainability certification and eco-labeling program recognized as the gold-standard in the floriculture and horticulture industries. The program is administered by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), a global third-party certifier of environmental, sustainability and agricultural product quality claims. Accredited under ISO/IEC Guide 65, the international standard for third-party product certifiers, VeriFlora:

•Delivers tangible results that benefit growers, workers, consumers,   the environment and the bottom-line

•Meets the growing consumer demand for sustainably grown cut               flowers and potted plants

•Helps assure product quality and longevity

A Passion for Flowers

& the Environment.

Our Mission

About the Owner

Owner Josef Reiter has been gardening and playing with flowers since he was kid and has worked in many different areas of the floral/nursery industry including florist shops, a catering & event company, a greenhouse, garden center, as well designing gardens for private clients before venturing out on his own with botanica floral design.

Previous to living in Portland he spent 21 years working as an artist in New York City. He has had success as a professional dancer/singer; performing on Broadway and on tour in such shows as Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, the original cast of A Christmas Carol - The Musical, Man of LaMancha, Anything Goes and CATS to name a few. He has also worked as a choreographer and as a producer.  He created and produces ActorCrafts, an annual art and craft fair featuring the work of New York’s theatre professionals and was an Associate Producer on the Off-Broadway musical Fanny Hill. In addition, he is a self-taught photographer and has his own greeting card company, The Hudson Street Card Co. His work has appeared on note cards, gift bags, wrapping paper, CD covers, framed art for the Bombay Company as well as the artwork for a Times Square restaurant.

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