Originally published here.
Ocean View Flowers has made its unique geography in the floral even more special with BloomCheck certification for its sustainable growing practices.
Ocean View’s 500 acres are located in the Lompoc Valley, fifty miles northwest of Santa Barbara, California, where northern and southern currents of the Pacific Ocean meet to create a cool ocean breeze so kind to growing and harvesting.
Photo provided by Ocean View Flowers.
The farm is renowned for its stock; customers also turn to them for larkspur, delphinium, Queen Anne’s lace, orlaya, bupleurum, craspedia and Bells of Ireland. Thanks to this vast array of florals, this farm, founded in 1992, has been the backdrop for a Free People catalog shoot.
“We are committed to excellence in the flowers we grow,” shared flower farmer Frank Costa of Ocean View Flowers. “We are proud to reflect that commitment in our BloomCheck Certification which reflects the high standards and the effort we make everyday in our sustainable growing practices.”
Flower farmers seeking BloomCheck certification undergo a rigorous third-party audit to ensure they are using best practices for sustainability when it comes to water, air and soil quality; wildlife protection; and social impacts on workers and the community. For Ocean View Flowers, that translates to careful seed bed preparation and critically timed drip irrigation and plant nutrients injections that improve yields and strengthen plant tissue for an improved vase life.
Employees hand select the best flowers based on length, stem thickness, color and cut stage. They practice lean manufacturing to eliminate waste and focus on product improvements from season to season.
Photo provided by Ocean View Flowers.
The company also depends on a state-of-the-art cold chain management practices to custom pack each box in a 48 degree cooler with 85 percent relative humidity/dew point to reduce condensation.
To see these sustainable growing practices and their beautiful flowers first hand, Ocean View Flowers will be hosting an American Grown Field to Vase Dinner event on September 7th at their farm in Lompoc, CA.