In recent years, areas such as Florida and Ecuador have become top suppliers to North America's flower industry, relying on affordable air freight to ship blooms quickly to florists across Canada and the U.S. But Halifax flower shop owner Neville MacKay says he's thinking twice these days about which blooms he chooses to fill his bouquets, as the rising price of oil drives up shipping costs considerably. MacKay also says many consumers are going green, opting for locally grown but equally lovely flowers.

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Neville MacKay. CBCnews.ca: How has the price of fuel affected your business?

Neville MacKay: People are saying, geez, the price of gas has gone up, the price of oil has gone up, I just got my tank filled and they're all nervous about that. Whenever you start to see that sort of storm brewing, you know that the worst is yet to come. I'm afraid once it hits the fall, we're going to see some serious repercussions from it when it starts to get a bit cooler. People may start to say, "Hold on a minute, I have to pay a lot more for heating oil or electricity or everything else, including gas to get back and forth to work."

I certainly think twice about when I have flowers shipped. I'm not as willy-nilly, because I get a lot of my shipments from Toronto. [I don't think] "ah, send them down by plane," because the freight charge has gone so dramatically up with fuel charges. When I'm in California and I see the price of a flower, I say, "well that's not so bad." But then I think, oh geez, I have to tack on something like 30 and 40 and 50 per cent to have that shipped.

Some of the suppliers have said it doesn't cost as much to ship north and south, but with west and east it costs more — that makes it very hard. Especially when people call from Toronto and Vancouver and they want to place an order for flowers and they say, "Oh gosh, your flowers are a lot more expensive." Well, we have to ship them sometimes a lot farther distances. There's not as many local growers here or accessibility to ground shipments that can come overnight from California or wherever.

What kinds of flowers have you had to scale back on?

I don't really scale back. I just make different choices and sometimes that's not such a bad thing.

With flowers a lot of us are making smarter choices in buying flowers that are either locally grown, more accessible, seasonal; we're staying away from flowers that aren't necessarily in season or grown to the point that they are easily attainable.

The flowers that you do you have shipped to the shop come from where?

We have flowers that are shipped from around the world, but I do have a supplier that I use locally in Nova Scotia as well as in Toronto, and some other little places as well.

'With flowers a lot of us are making smarter choices in buying flowers that are either locally grown, more accessible, seasonal; we're staying away from flowers that aren't necessarily in season or grown to the point that they are easily attainable.' —Neville MacKay

But I'm giving weddings now with flowers that have never been on an airplane. [The flowers] are locally grown within 100 miles. That can be challenging, and I embrace that completely. Bring it on, I'd love to do that — however, don't be looking for Cypripedium orchids, because you ain't gonna get them. I may have to do some ditch diving, but you'll get something lovely.

Have consumers adjusted their expectations of what should be available?

People have a misconception when they see a flower online and it says available year-round — they think they can get it now.

I mean, I can get lily of the valley any time of the year. However, if I was to get that for you next week from Holland, it's going to cost me to have that shipped about $5 a stem. Lily of the valley has teeny, teeny little flowers … and one stem doesn't go that far.

How would your business be affected if the price of fuel doubled from what it is now?

This is just a what-if question, right? You're not telling me something I should know? Because I just took a petit mal seizure there.

Flowers are a luxury item, but flowers are also food for the soul, so sometimes when people need a real good treat they can say, "You know what? I can't afford to buy that TV or I can't afford to buy that DVD, but nothing makes you feel better than a little bouquet of flowers and a candle on the table."

People will probably be buying less. They'll be more choosy about what they're buying, more particular about the quality, which suits me just fine because people want the best for their dollar. It might weed out some of the floral shops that are selling flowers indiscriminately, flowers that are not the best quality in the world.

But if fuel prices double, I'm also afraid it's going to separate the classes a little bit. Those who have very little money to start with will buy themselves a treat now and then, and I'm afraid that that market might be lost altogether, which is a shame because everyone deserves a little treat now and then.