As we’ve seen during these past few weeks, many flower farms and wholesalers have had to shut down production due to the outbreak of coronavirus. As flower lovers, it has been heartbreaking to see piles of flowers headed for the dump instead of spread throughout people’s homes and special events. At the end of March, Jocelyn Kehrle, Mayesh Flower Wholesale rep in Portland, Oregon, saw an opportunity for flowers to bring happiness and joy to their city instead of waste. 

“I couldn’t stomach the thought of just throwing all the flowers out. I proposed this idea to my boss to box up as many flowers as possible and give them to our customers to either do flower bombs all over Portland and Washington or make bouquets and give them away to make people smile and cheer them up in this crazy time.” — Jocelyn with Mayesh Portland

With the help of other Portland Mayesh representatives, they began to reach out to loyal Mayesh customers in the Portland area and explain the situation at hand. With loads of flowers headed for the waste bins, this was the perfect opportunity for local florists to save them and create something really special for their community. Alyssa of @colortheorydesignco, Janessa of @acorn_andtheoak, Amy of @brierandivy, and Brittney of @knotandfern are just some of the local florists that really got the flower bomb tour running!

Alyssa with @colortheorydesignco came up with the idea of a flower tour (sounds amazing, right!) where each florist would create a special installation at the location of their choice and a map would be made for people all over Portland to drive by and enjoy! 

“Our thought is to utilize these blooms to make the greatest impact in the city—and in the hearts of the people—by creating urban floral installations for a drive-by tour of each florists' creation.” — Alyssa with @colortheorydesignco 

Jocelyn began color-pulling for florists to come and grab a cohesive palette for their designs while Alyssa sent out a mass message to Portland florists to join in for this incredible and unique flower bombing! They had a number people could text to see the map of all the installations around the city, and 1,500 people texted that number. With just two days to coordinate, get the florists their flowers, and set locations on the map, it was pulled together by pure magic! 

Flowers of all colors were paraded and decorated throughout the city. Street lamps, trees, trashcans, park benches, sides of buildings, and houses were all covered in lush blooms. What a wonderful sight for the community during such a troubling time. This special tour allowed people to safely leave their house in their car to drive around and see pops of hope and love throughout their city! 

It’s no doubt this flower tour brought smiles to many, many faces. Isn’t it incredible what can be done through the power of flowers? We give a big shout out and thank-you to Mayesh for your generosity and for connecting with florists to share the beautiful message of flowers. 

To see more of the tour, check out the hashtag #flowertourpdx on Instagram!