At Botany, sustainability is not just a value; it’s the very essence of our business. We invite you to discover the ways in which we prioritise environmental responsibility while ensuring the quality of our stunning flower arrangements. Our unwavering commitment to sustainability leads us to select locally grown, seasonal flowers, guaranteeing a flower delivery service that maintains the highest quality without compromising our planet.

We believe that sustainable floristry is the natural next step for our industry. As a sustainable florist in Melbourne, our goal was to create as little impact on the environment as possible. We take pride in our membership in the Sustainable Floristry Network, a worldwide community committed to sustainability.

SFN serves as an educational hub for sustainable florists and customers alike, helping us all understand our environmental footprint and how to make positive changes. When you choose florists within this network, you’re choosing sustainable flowers from Australian farms that have minimal impact on our environment.

Slow food is a term used to describe hyper-local, chemical free food with a farm-to-consumer model.

Slow flowers is a similar concept.

Here in Australia, we can technically use "locally grown" to describe any flowers that are Australian grown. But for us, that isn't enough. In a country that spans roughly 4000kms, we wanted to condense the concept of "locally grown" down to flowers grown within Victoria.

About 95% of the flowers we use are grown in Gisborne, Lower Plenty, Bungaree, Torquay and Gippsland. We often collect your flowers directly from the farms, ensuring the freshest quality.

Meet some of your local flower farmers below!

The floral industry has two major waste streams - single use plastic sleeves, and floral foam.

Removing these from our business was vital to ensuring a low environmental impact. This decision alone has meant that Botany has avoided thousands of plastics sleeves from being added to landfill in its 5 years of operation.

Floral foam is a thermoset phenolic plastic foam that litters the environment with trillions of microplastic particles. Is has done untold damage since its introduction in the 1950s.

We researched sustainable alternatives to present our flowers in, such as reusable glass vases, post-consumer recycled paper, and certified compostable wet-wrap bags. These can be composted at home or in some council green waste bins.

We've created a helpful guide for our customers to find out which councils will compost the bags in their FOGO (Food Organics, Garden Organics) bin collection.

As an online florist, deliveries form the main part of our services. We offset our vehicle emissions by partnering with Greenfleet, a not-for-profit organisation that uses donations like ours to plant native and biodiverse forests.

These forests are legally protected for 100 years, ensuring they continue to provide vital habitat for native species and sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

Botany owner Ellen volunteered at one of their planting days in Kinglake Victoria, on Wurundjeri Country, to experience their impact first hand.

Read the full story below.