When the Philadelphia bridge collapse and closure brought detoured motorists past Stein Your Florist Co., the shop seized the opportunity to show drivers how flowers could brighten their new commute.
The morning after an interstate bridge collapsed near her family’s flower shop in Philadelphia earlier this month, Jennifer Kelly was thinking of the detours that would leave commuters irritably puttering through traffic right past the shop. And then she had an idea.
“I thought, we need to do something to lift everybody’s spirts while this is happening,” recalls Kelly. “Flowers always make people happy. Why not put them in their cars while they’re out there battling these detours?”
That day, the cupholder-sized arrangement, dubbed “Detour Bouquet,” was born.
Kelly says she took an 8-ounce Mason jar she had sitting around and filled it with seemingly unusable scraps of flowers left on her table after completing other arrangements. She printed a little card with the I-95 and detour signs and tucked it in among the blooms.
Sharon Bird of Stein Your Florist Co. finishes up the first of many “detour bouquets.”
It was the first of many mini bouquets sold by the Kelly family at Stein Your Florist Co. in Philadelphia and Steins at Sunset Florist in Burlington, New Jersey. Jennifer’s father, Patrick Kelly, says a lot of people commute between the cities, so some customers who frequented the Jersey store were also impacted by the Philly bridge collapse.
Every bouquet is different. The Kellys use whatever small containers they have sitting around the shop. If it holds water and can fit in a cupholder, it’s a contender. The flowers and greens included depend on what scraps go well together.
“If you break a rose, it’s too short to stick in most things, but it will fit in these guys,” says Jennifer. “You can save those little, short guys and upcycle your tiny containers.”
Patrick says they’re always encouraging designers not to throw away good flowers. Instead of ending up in the trash, stubby stems often end up in bubble ball arrangements. The cupholder bouquets offer a new option for designers.
The arrangements are priced based on the flowers or plants used (the shop offers cupholder-sized plants or succulents, too). They’ve sold arrangements for as little as $6 and as much as $20.
“If someone wants a fancier one, I can cram flowers in there until they hit the car’s ceiling,” says Jennifer.
(The Kellys encourage customers not to leave the bouquets in their cars when they arrive at their destinations, explaining that the summer heat will spoil the flowers. The bouquets can sit pretty on office desks, for example, until customers have to head back to their cars for the long slog home.)
While the cupholder-sized bouquets were created in response to the I-95 bridge collapse — and earned them a spot on the local CBS news station, the Kellys say they’ve had many customers buy them for non-detour-related reasons: end-of-year teacher gifts, hospital room well wishes, and bedside table décor, for example. Jennifer says they just remove the little detour cards and replace them with something more appropriate.
The I-95 bridge reopened temporarily last week after only 12 days of construction. But while the detours are over, for now, the cupholder bouquets are here to stay.
“Just because the detour is over doesn’t mean you can’t have some buds in your car,” says Jennifer. “As long as it puts smiles on people’s faces, we’ll keep doing it.”
Laurie Herrera is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.