Green Gifts That Grow
The greenest gifts are those that grow. What better way to share your love for each other and your love for the environment than by giving your guests seeds, trees, or plants they can enjoy for weeks, months, and even years to come?
Measure Your Options
The options for favors that grow are practically as limitless as the multitude of trees, flowers, and seeds you can find. However, you should consider several things when you choose a live favor. Is the plant species native to the area where you and the majority of your guests live? When is the optimal time for planting it in the ground? For instance, if you're getting married in October, you might not want to give a tree that should be planted in the spring. What is your budget for favors? Where will you store all the plants or trees until the wedding, and how easy will it be to transport all of them to the reception location? Also consider how hardy the plants are. You don't want to buy fragile plants that could perish at any given moment before the wedding.
Even though favors have become quite popular over the years, they are not required at your wedding reception. The food, the drinks, and the whole party you are providing is plenty. If you don't have the money to budget for favors or you think they are an unnecessary waste of energy and resources, you can choose to skip them.
Small trees, small potted plants, potted flowers, and lucky (curly) bamboo all make good green favors. Easy-to-grow potted flowers include marigolds, petunias, poppies, Shasta daisies, impatiens, mums, and small sunflowers. These flowers can be purchased rather cheaply; you can find a whole flat for around $10 and then transplant them into larger decorative pots for the reception. Buy them a month or so in advance to let the flowers take root in the new containers and fill out into pretty, full plants.
Homegrown Plants
You may want to support the grow-your-own food movement and give fruit or vegetable plants that grow well in containers such as berries, tomatoes, or peppers. Culinary herbs are rather easy to grow in small containers, and there are many to choose from, including basil, oregano, thyme, chives, and several kinds of mint.
You can start many flowers, plants, and herbs from seeds indoors if it is too cold to grow them outside, and you don't need anything fancy to grow them. A large windowsill or sunny area, several egg cartons, and lots of peat pellets will do the trick. Just water the peat pellets until they swell inside the egg carton holes, put the seeds deep into the peat soil, water them, and soon you will have flowers growing. Just remember to keep the peat moist and put a tray under the egg carton to collect excess water. If it gets warm, you can transfer the cartons outside. The plants can be transplanted into larger pots or containers once they grow large enough.
Trees are sometimes harder to start from seed, so you may want to purchase seedlings that are already well established. Tree in a Box (www.treeinabox.com) offers many styles for wedding favors and gifts, and the Arbor Day Foundation (www.arborday.org) has a wedding package that consists of your choice of redwoods, pines, or spruces. You can make a customized label with a personal message, and the tree comes in a tube that can be converted into a bird feeder.
Trees manufacture more than five pounds of pure oxygen per day, consume carbon dioxide to reduce the greenhouse effect, and provide natural cooling. They also collect pollutants from the air, provide homes for birds and animals, enrich the soil, and prevent soil erosion.
Bulbs and Seeds
Another beautifully green option is flower bulbs. You can give just the bulb itself in a nice little eco-package with directions for planting it or you can grow bulb flowers in containers or pots. Bulbs can be forced to grow out of season, but it can be a tricky process and very draining on the bulb. You can always experiment ahead of time to see what works for you. A very striking display is a bulb flower growing in a clear vase.
Seeds are a wonderfully green option. Some companies offer custom printed seed packets with all your wedding information on them. Favors with Seeds (www.favorswithseeds.com) specializes in creating all kinds of beautiful seed favors, kits, and seed packets.
While Kevin and Lori Graham were planning their own wedding in 1995, they realized they worked very well together. After the wedding, they created a low-impact business that offers earth-focused products. Of the Earth is now one of the largest retailers of handmade, recycled, and tree-free wedding invitations.
You can get the same effect by purchasing many regular seed packets and designing and printing your own custom labels at home on your computer. It's not that difficult or time-consuming, and you'll save a lot of money. Instead of buying individual seed packets, you could purchase a big bag of wildflower seeds and scoop handfuls into custom-made cloth or mesh bags or handmade paper envelopes and affix a cute tag or label with planting directions.
GreenWorld Project (www.greenworldproject.net) has a wide variety of reasonably priced live tree seedlings, wildflowers, and tree seeds in addition to custom printed wedding seed packets and other earth-friendly favors. If you are worried about seeds ending up everywhere, go for favors made from plantable, handcrafted seed paper. Plantable seed paper favors will coordinate beautifully if you sent out invitations made from handcrafted seed paper. Make your own or purchase seed favors from Of the Earth (www.custompaper.com), Botanical PaperWorks (www.botanicalpaperworks.com), Tree Beginnings (www.plantamemory.com), or Ecoparti (www.ecoparti.com). Pretty and useful plantable paper favors are a great eco-favorite.
Any of these beautiful green favor options can be elegantly displayed at each table setting or they can be grouped together as takeaway table centerpieces. Use individual square pots or vases for a centerpiece that fits tightly together. Experiment ahead of time to discover what arrangement pleases you the most.
