Real Sustainability for the Real Florist with Mayesh Design Star, Abby Chick
Abby Chick is back — retail flower shop owner at Blakemore Flowers in Virginia, Flower Clique Prep School educator, creative advisor, and now a 2023 Mayesh Design Star. Her focus for the video series: sustainability for the everyday florist. Not the famous designers, not the luxury wedding studios — "the silent majority of people who are using flowers and filling orders," who, as she points out, probably consume more product than anyone. This conversation with Vonda and Lori is the most honest take on floral sustainability you'll hear: practical, imperfect, and free of high horses.
How a talker became a Design Star
Abby got the gig by refusing to shut up about a problem. She'd been talking to anyone who'd listen about the unmet sustainability needs of retail work — where, unlike weddings, arrangements can't just last 24 hours. When Mayesh announced they were seeking Design Stars focused on sustainability, a Flower Clique member and Abby's friends pushed her to apply. An audition video and an interview later, she found herself listed alongside personal heroes like Susan McCleary — and fighting off imposter syndrome. Encouragement for anyone thinking of applying: it costs nothing, Mayesh doesn't choose based on follower counts or celebrity (Abby had around 1,000 followers on her professional account), and the team has been genuinely lovely.
"Smaller steps, better than"
Abby is transparent about where she actually stands: she still uses traditional floral foam in her business, though she's significantly reduced her reliance on it. Her go-to replacement is fiber floral media — not identical to foam, not a perfect solution, but free of microplastics, made from natural material, and easy to get. Her philosophy is "smaller steps, better than": pick the improvement you can actually sustain rather than trying to guzzle from the ocean. She's even gone straight to the source, talking with Frank at Smithers-Oasis — himself a former retail florist — because she'd rather engage with a company actively funding alternatives than bash it. Some of her early well-intentioned experiments, she admits, turned out no better than just using a smaller brick of foam. Following the full life cycle of any mechanic reveals catch-22s everywhere: lead in flower frogs, plastic in eggs, metal in chicken wire.
The reality check: customers and clocks
The hosts and Abby agree on the constraint the loudest sustainability voices tend to skip: time. Florists are MacGyvers, solving grief and deadlines with whatever's on hand — and foam-free mechanics often take twice the material and don't deliver the longevity customers expect. Every Christmas arrangement Abby has ever sold was expected to last a month; you can't change that expectation overnight, only through one-on-one conversations. Refuse the order on principle, and "you can ride that high horse all the way to unemployment" while five other florists in town happily fill it.
And customers rarely ask anyway. Abby has had exactly one truly sustainable event request this year — from a beekeeping, permaculture-practicing client — and even she never said "no floral foam." The event meant all local and seasonal flowers, zero plastic, everything composted or planted afterward (the foliage plants went into the client's food forest). The honest math: $10,000 did not go very far. True sustainability requires sacrifices, and your customers have to be on board with the mission.
Speak up, imperfections and all
Abby's deeper message is about voice. Too many retail florists with valuable insights stay quiet because internet culture punishes imperfection — and meanwhile, the innovators building new products never hear about the real-world problems they should be solving. She showed up "in all of my imperfections" precisely to make it easier for the next florist with a "stupid idea" to share it. Her videos live on the Mayesh blog and YouTube channel (search Mayesh), each with a full recipe and ingredient list — including her latest on holiday retail design, which she promises will make Vonda proud: it's all about the numbers, "because none of this matters if your numbers aren't right."
Coming up: Abby presents a two-hour all-things-retail program for the North Carolina State Floral Association on Sunday, January 21 — sponsored by Mayesh, free for NCSFA members, open to anyone in the area.
Key takeaways
- Sustainability is not all-or-nothing: pick smaller, sustainable-for-you steps — a reduced-foam shop beats an abandoned mission.
- Fiber floral media is the easiest first swap from traditional foam, but evaluate the full life cycle of every mechanic before calling it "better."
- Sustainability is bigger than foam: recyclable bouquet wraps, composting services, and local sourcing all count.
- Customer expectations change through one-on-one conversations, not refusals — and truly sustainable events cost real money.
- Share your experiments openly; your feedback is exactly what product innovators need to solve retail's real problems.