Skip the Cut Flowers; Choose Eco-Friendly Succulent Plants

Green interior designer, Ryann Davis, recently presented a fabulous alternative to wasteful cut flowers, a $40 billion a year industry that's doing major ecological damage, on Supper Club. Her company Succulentla is a floral design firm based on the succulent plant. A succulent plant is a water-retaining plant adapted to arid climates or soil conditions. The most familiar succulent plant is the agave plant.

79 percent of cut flowers come from Ecuador or Columbia and are grown with 12 different pesticides. These pesticides are getting workers sick and polluting our ground water.

Why is the succulent plant such a good alternative? For one, it retains water so it takes very little watering for it to flourish. The succulent plant also lasts forever, while cut flowers die out in a week. Additionally, Davis and her business partner, actress Samantha Mathis, have taken great pains to make their company eco-friendly.

All the plants are grown locally without the use of any pesticides through partnerships with local farmers. The handsome planters that these modernistic floral beauties come in are made locally without the use of any toxins in the glaze. The distinctive pieces come in tons of fantastic designs and can be mailed all over the country in biodegradable and recycled packaging.

Aside from the product, their Web site is powered by Greenesthost.com, a 100 percent solar powered server. It uses 100 percent recycled or repurposed paper and the company vehicles are all hybrids. Most recently, Succulenta has begun donating 1 percent of its annual gross revenues to 1 % For the Planet.