The Weekly From Flowershop
A Charleston florist aims to make bouquets at home a regular ritual through fresh blooms and coffee
by Chérmelle Edwards
Lily Peterson is a florist designing signature arrangements with blooms, branches and berries at Flowershop, her boutique in Charleston’s developing neighborhood of Mixson, South Carolina. From growing up in North Carolina to living in major metropolises like San Francisco and New York, one thing has remained constant in her life: her love of flowers. Working out of a tiny studio 15 minutes from downtown Charleston, it was missing those city afternoons when you could run out, have a coffee with friends and pop into a space to get provisions that her idea of a flower sharing program came about.
After Peterson and her husband—both coffee lovers—made several daily visits their local downtown cafe, Black Tap Coffee, Peterson mused that it would also be nice to do other things while at the coffee shop, such as buy flowers. While working on weekly flower accounts at her brick and mortar store, Peterson conceived a flower share program with Black Tap’s owners; for which bunches of flowers could appear weekly at their space. In an effort to encourage people to have blooms around the house more regularly, The Weekly was born. “Flowers should be part of your home—by your bedside, on the dinner table and also for those special occasions,” Peterson says.
Arranged in bundles as a single share (a hand-tied bouquet for $20) or a double share (flowers for an entire home for $40), The Weekly now appears every Thursday at Black Tap. “Since I’m picking weekly, every share has to be different. I like textural greens and the obscure. Things that are interesting. Local—if I can get them—and sturdy, so that they will last a week,” says Peterson. On Mondays, Petersen takes inventory of what flowers she already has—sourced from everywhere from California to New York, Holland, South Africa and New Zealand. Afterwards, she heads out to local spots around town, with an eye on textural greens. “I like the idea of arrangements that a person can come and pick up, whether you’re popping into Mixson or within the peninsula as we call it in Charleston. You might see things like scabiosa, cornflowers and berries in your bundle, but always lots of greens—it’s my signature,” she says.
Peterson hopes that the flower share will be well received in Charelston, and has one simple aim for the project. She says, “Coming to the coffee shop is just as convenient as going to the grocery store. I’m hoping that soon people will think ‘Thursday, that’s flower day.’ Grab their coffee and their bundle—a new ritual.”
Images courtesy of Olivia Rae James
