‘UConn Blooms’ flower shop expands, provides students incentives to buy

The new renovated floriculture building transformed their small, open patent flower shop to a bigger, more attractive plant and flower store.

Jim Palmieri, the manager of UConn Blooms and a professor of floral arts classes, has two missions: to teach horticulture students how to run and maintain a flower shop, and to generate more plant and flower interests in students at UConn.

Most of the flowers sold in the flower shop are grown here in the Floriculture Center, such as, the big bright daisies. The flowers range from Hypoestes Polka Dot Plant to Beaucarnea recuroata “PonyTail Palm” to Boston Ferns to cactuses and succulents.

“We sell easy care flowers and plants here,” said Palmieri.

With the knowledge that most students in UConn have busy schedules with the balance of their schoolwork load and extracurricular activities, he said, “They are all suitable to grow in dorms. After every student purchases a flower or plant, we give them information on how they should care for it. It’s not hard to take care of these flowers and plants at all and most of them can live for a good period of time.”
“Flowers are a really nice dorm decoration,” said Doris Lin, 5th-semester accounting major. “They are also a good gift for every occasion. Having a flower shop on campus is very convenient in case I need to buy flowers for someone.”
Yezmin Crespo-Adorno, a 3rd-semester physiology and neurobiology major, said, “Flowers bring positivity to our life. Waking up in the morning and the first thing I see are flowers brightens up my day.”
According to a flyer in the Floriculture Center, “Research from Rutgers University shows that the presence of flowers has an immediate impact on happiness and increases enjoyment and life satisfaction.”
To further promote the purchase of flowers, UConn Blooms is also hosting a contest called “Keep It Alive.” The goal is to keep the plant purchased at the flower shop alive until the last day of classes. There are seven species of plants to choose from in this contest. The plant that grows the best will win the Best of Species award in each of the seven categories and those seven plants will be entered into the Best of Bloom competition, where the winner will win a dozen roses (valued at $50) that will be received on Valentine’s Day.

Within the next month, a survey on the purchasing habits of students of this generation will be presented to the students at UConn with the intention of receiving information on the incentives of the students to buy flowers and improving UConn Blooms’ choices.

UConn Blooms will also be selling small pumpkins with flowers in them in the Student Union on Wednesday, Oct. 30.