In the heart of Gastown, you’ll find Olla Urban Flower Project, a socially and environmentally progressive flower shop known for visionary designs and a dedication to local, urban and ethical flower production.
Owner and operator Megan Branson says since she opened the shop in 2010, the majority of her clients have come in because of their love for the aesthetically pleasing arrangements. However, there is also a segment of environmentally and socially conscious customers, who had previously stopped making floral purchases, seeing the industry as wasteful and problematic. Now, they have come back to purchasing flowers because of Olla's ethical policies.
“All of our flowers come from one of three sources: international-but-fair certified growers, large-scale growers from across the Lower Mainland, and urban gardens or small-scale organic farms,” explains Megan. In addition to floral services, Olla Urban Flower Project offers monthly workshops on plant and flower design in their downtown shop space.
Olla is a socially conscious florist. Every plant available from owner Megan Branson is sourced from an urban garden, a local farm, or from a Fair Trade/Veriflora certified farm. Branson’s unique aesthetic is wild and minimalist, finding beauty in combinations of local flora. If you’re looking for an unstructured bouquet that’s natural, handcrafted and sustainable, look no further than Olla. Check out the online shop for inspiring seasonal blooms.
Megan Branson’s online flower shop and social enterprise helps employ people from the Downtown Eastside, uses flowers from local city gardens or certified Fair Trade farms, and redistributes flowers to bring joy to local charities. The actual arrangements and flowers themselves are as beautiful as the sentiment behind the shop.
Not only is this gorgeous plant and flower shop creating stunning of-the-moment air plant and succulent arrangements, they’re also a social enterprise. Everything they source is from a local farm or garden or is fair-trade certified, and they provide jobs to locals of the Downtown Eastside where they’re located. They also reuse corporate arrangements — so often just used fleetingly — for non-profit events operating nearby. And they promote the growing of retail flowers in urban residential gardens. Beauty and good cause in one.