By “Meadowesque” is the term florist Molly Oliver Culvers uses to describe the current trend in wedding bouquets. This means, she explained, the use of flora like grasses and agrostemma (lavender, purple, and white flowers also known as corncockle flowers) and Ranunculus, Cosmos, and Queen Anne’s Lace. All the while, she understands that some people have a passion for traditional bouquets of roses, peonies, and hydrangeas.
This sounds quite literary, even poetic. Happily, the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore at 2020 Broadway is a pick-up spot for Molly Oliver Flowers customers who subscribe to receive seasonal bouquets once a week or once every two weeks.
These are no ordinary bouquets. Molly Oliver Flowers‘s followers are admirers of what Molly has called “hard to find” varieties of flowers. These are blooms that have not been cultivated with the use of chemical fertilizers aimed at building their endurance during transport from South America and boosting potential for keeping prices down for sales in bodegas and supermarkets.
By contrast, flowers sold by Molly Oliver Flowers are mostly grown in the tristate area by sustainability-focused, environmentally committed farmers. She described her enthusiasm, for example, for one source for her flowers, the CT Flower Collective, which includes 50 flower growers who produce on land ranging in size from 1/4 acre to 20 acres.
And it’s not only that the flowers are organically grown, but most materials used by Molly Oliver Flowers for arranging and packaging are recyclable.
She described the evolution of her business on her website: “I launched Molly Oliver Flowers (MOF) out of my apartment in 2011 in Brooklyn. The first 8 years of running this business, I worked simultaneously as a farm manager and educator at a 1-acre educational farm in Crown Heights. I continued to be deeply immersed in growing flowers, selling and marketing flowers to community consumers, restaurants, and florists, while teaching adults the ins and outs of producing food and flowers using sustainable practices. In 2019, after 15 consecutive growing seasons, I ‘retired’ from farming and went full time with Molly Oliver Flowers.”
Visually, what makes arrangements by Molly Oliver Flowers distinctive is that Molly and her team (four full-time staff and 15 others called in for special events) are exceptionally attuned to juxtaposing the shapes and colors of blooms so that they evoke the awe you might feel viewing a beautiful sunrise or feeling surprised by the scent of lavender in the breeze on a spring evening. Molly regularly sends out emails illustrated with an artful photo of a single flower or a beautiful bouquet, such as “your weekly flower.” This is a virtual calling card to spur a purchase and a simple note of visual enjoyment. The photos of flowers Molly shoots and posts on her website are enticing – you want to print them out and tack them to your wall. And that’s only a minute fraction of the pleasure of holding an actual bouquet.
The subscription business arose out of Covid and the reality that farmers were unable to sell their flowers in markets. Also, as a florist, Molly was faced with the crisis of having all 50 events scheduled for spring 2020 canceled within two weeks. Eventually, she found that NYC customers resonated with the idea of flower subscription pickups once businesses started to reopen.
Molly Oliver Flowers’ business is devoted 50 percent to subscriptions (with 19 pickup spots throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn and one in LIC with the other half devoted to flower arrangements for weddings, brand launches, bar and bat mitzvahs, engagement parties, corporate gatherings and other special events.
A large Molly Oliver Flowers studio in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, overlooking New York Harbor, is where flower arranging takes place. Beginning in Spring 2024, it will also host workshops on flower sketching, watercolors, ceramics, and other botanical-related topics.
Interested in subscribing for the flowers? Check out the Molly Oliver Flowers website: https://mollyoliverflowers.com.
If you’re coming to the Shakespeare & Co. on Broadway and 69th Street to collect your bouquet (unless you have it delivered) you may pick up a coffee or tea at the cafe and almost certainly find yourself browsing the shelves. Yes, there are books about flowers and gardening. Staffer Anton Karabushin recommended “The Flower Love” by Kristen Griffith-VanderYacht and “Garden: Exploring the Horticultural World” by Phaidon Editors as two of the most beautiful.