Buying Flowers During Shemitah

The information in the tables below relates to buying bouquets and flower arrangements, not to buying plants in nurseries.¹ Do not purchase flowers from growers who grow them in a forbidden manner to avoid aiding wrongdoers. Buy them only from vendors who present proof that the flowers grew in a permissible manner, under halachic supervision or heter mechirah.

Flowers that may be purchased even without halachic supervision include:

1. Flowers generally planted latest before the beginning of shemitah; it stands to reason they were planted beforehand.
2. Perennials were not necessarily planted during shemitah and may have been planted before.

Even in these cases it is best to purchase flowers only from places with supervision, to ensure they are tended to during the shemitah year in a permissible fashion. Furthermore, the year following shemitah we need to make sure to buy plants planted in a permissible manner (heter mechirah/detached platforms).

Kedushat shevi'it – Fragrant flowers picked during the shemitah year not grown on detached platforms or employing heter mechirah have kedushat shevi’it, shemitah sanctity. Fragrant flowers are marked *
 

🌷Flowers that require supervision throughout shemitah²

🌷Perennials that do not require supervision during shemitah³

🌷 Flowers that require supervision part of shemitah⁵

Notes

1. For more on buying flowers and saplings from nurseries, see Chapter 23 of The Consumer's Guide to Shemitah, p. 150.

2. Such flowers are annuals that are generally planted in the middle of the year. These flowers were not growing at the beginning of the shemitah year. When they reach the market, they will definitely have been planted during shemitah.

3. Perennials do not need supervision since they were not necessarily planted during shemitah, and when there is room for doubt it is possible to be lenient. Nevertheless, there is a real possibility that these flowers were planted during shemitah, so lechatchilah one should purchase them in a place with kashrut supervision.

4. Fragrant roses should be handled as having kedushat shevi'it.

5. These flowers are planted at certain dates throughout the year. For this reason, only from the date that new flowers begin to grow is there a concern that the flowers were planted during the shemitah year.