Seven Planet

Happy Valentine’s Day From seven planet & botanica: floral design

It is here again, the one holiday a year where we celebrate love, relationships, romance and where we inherently buy one of nature’s greatest gifts…flowers.  It has become a staple in the U.S. to make certain that every February 14th you get a bouquet, an arrangement or at a minimum a single long stem rose for your love.  Many of us wait till the last minute and many of us just go to the closest one stop store where we can get a card, some candies and that arrangement.

Until lately, we at seven planet didn’t think much of this Valentine’s Day purchasing tradition until Josef Reiter, the founder of botanica: floral design (located in seven planet Oregon), told us the “tale of two roses”.  See Josef describes how you can show someone two very similar looking roses, but one is freshly cut, from Oregon, grown organically and not shipped at all.  The other was cut a week to ten days ago, is from Brazil, grown with pesticides and herbicides and was shipped via truck, then via boat, then via a truck again.

Both roses cost a similar amount to us in the end as the consumer, but the local one creates jobs in the U.S., builds the foundation of organic farmers nationally, minimizes CO2 output and builds on localism and community.  The other exports jobs from America, puts workers often in very poorly health regulated work environments, adds immensely to green house gases and does little to nothing for local communities.  For us now, the “tale of two roses” hits home.

So, this Valentine’s Day we are expressing our love for our spouses and loved ones as usual, but also for our farmers, our community, our state and our planet at large by supporting our local botanica: floral design and their mission to rewrite the story of the “tale of two roses”.

As you know we love our seven planet mindful suppliers and the amazing product lines and services that they have brought to market for you and I to make mindful commerce more viable in our lives. This past fall seven planet began on an ongoing educational project called mindful media where we are utilizing, reviewing and educating on the best products and services we provide in our stores and on our site to you.

These mindful media videos are then provided to you and to our suppliers as they are a candid 3rd party review of how their products or services are a better, more eco-friendly solution for the necessity-based products and services we all purchase and use. In these videos you will learn about their company, their brand message, their product or service purpose and of course the unique applications of those products or services.

This most recent mindful media video is on one of our favorite suppliers, the wonderful CleanWell, out of San Francisco, California. Sam DeAth and Dr. Larry Weiss, co-founders of the company, designed their product suite to help provide more eco-friendly and human friendly ways by which to clean. Sam’s son Conor, was born with an auto-immune disorder and so their need was real in regards to creating better cleaning solutions that would not negatively affect Conor’s health. A father’s mission has now led to an amazing product line for us all. To see the mindful media review click here.

Wisdom Wands are durable, hand blown glass straws with specialty filters. They are utilized for drinking coffee, tea and mate without the need for filters allowing for eco-friendly hot cups of beverages on the go.

The OOTS! products distinguish themselves from the crowd with refreshing, modern design combined with common sense functionality. OOTS! distributes designer lunchbox products from the Netherlands that we feel share that typical, modern yet practical, design sense.