Reusing fresh flowers to spread Smiles and Beauty

Reusing fresh flowers to spread Smiles and Beauty

November 18, 2016
Reusing fresh flowers to spread Smiles and Beauty
Reusing fresh flowers to spread Smiles and Beauty

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By Amal Al-Sibai
Saudi Gazette

Have you ever been to a lavish wedding and admired the beautiful flower arrangements shrouding the bride’s stage? Did you ever wonder what happens to the lovely, colorful flowers that adorn the tables in the wedding hall? Does it sadden you that all those beautiful roses, lilies, orchids, tulips, and carnations will be piled up in a huge heap and thrown in the garbage after the wedding is over?

Why throw away beautiful flowers after the party is over?

That is exactly what Jennifer Grove, upscale wedding and event designer, asked herself after every client event that she helped design and plan. From custom bridal bouquets to floral walls and overflowing centerpieces, she hated to see all this beauty go to waste after the big event was over.

This question inspired her to launch her new company, Repeat Roses, which aims to save the planet by reusing the sometimes colossal amount of flowers used at weddings, and to spread joy throughout the world, one flower bouquet at a time.

The bride and groom or the host of any grand event can pre-arrange with the company, for a certain service fee, to ensure that the flowers are put to good use. You can share your joy with those people in the community who will benefit from the emotional health boost your flowers can provide.

Repeat Roses will collect all of your flowers at the end of your event and will carefully restyle everything into smaller arrangements appropriate for the bedside tables of patients in hospitals, hospice care, cancer treatment centers, nursing homes, children’s centers, and women’s shelters.

If you are concerned that plants and flowers should not be placed in a hospital room because they are bad for the patient’s health; that is just a myth.

It is true that plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen during daytime and that plants absorb more oxygen than they produce and they emit carbon dioxide at night. However, overall, flowers add far more oxygen to a hospital room than they use. During the daytime, plants emit 10 times more oxygen than they use up at night, so a hospital room with flowers in it will actually end up more oxygenated than one without.

The benefits of having flowers in a patient’s room outweigh any possible, negligible risk. Studies have shown that having flowers in a hospital room makes patients feel better. A 2008 study in the journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science revealed that patients in hospital rooms containing flowers or potted plants used less pain medication and had lower blood pressure than patients in rooms without flowers or plants.

Flowers are good for our mental health. Research links indoor flowers with wellbeing. Researchers Park and Mattson found that patients in hospital rooms with brightly colored flowers needed less postoperative pain medication, had lower blood pressure and pulse rates, were less anxious and tired, and generally were in a more positive psychological state than patients in rooms without flowers or green plants.  

Flowers and plants can also be used in the home, work spaces, and schools. Studies have revealed that cognitive performance is better in offices with plants than in workplaces without plants. Researchers have also linked seeing green leafy plants with being more creative.

There are many good and beneficial uses to re-use the flowers that have decorated expensive weddings and banquets, rather than just chucking them out in the garbage.

The founders of Repeat Roses said, “Imagine the happiness and comfort a surprise delivery of flowers will bring to a pediatric cancer patient and her family, an elderly individual unable to leave their home, a hospice care patient or a senior in a nursing home who hasn’t had a recent visitor.”

You may be inspired by this story to reach out to Repeat Roses if it is available in your locale, or if it is not available, maybe you can create something like it in your city.


November 18, 2016
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