Elgin Street florist Belfiore Flowers knows the power of flowers for every occasion

It's at the best, and worst, of times, that even with thousands of words in the English language at our disposal, sometimes we can't find the right one to adequately describe what we're feeling.

It's at those times, we give flowers.

It's also the reason why Minoo Banaei chose to spend her life arranging and selling flowers at Belfiore Flowers on Elgin Street.

Artist and entrepreneur, Banaei is a florist who connects with customers on an emotional level. And with Valentine's Day, the busiest time of the year for florists, just around the corner, Banaei is expecting this week to be an emotional experience.

“Valentines is a big day in the florist industry because people love to give flowers during the best and worst times of their life,” Banaei says. “We sell emotion. It could be a happy or a sad occasion. People give flowers at weddings and funerals. I prefer the happy occasion, but it's not my choice. Sometimes we have to do the heartbreaking occasion.”

A kindergarten teacher in a previous life, Banaei studied floral design and worked at Belfiore Flowers for 10 years before buying the business in 2012.

In the time since, she's transformed the flower shop into a space resembling an antique store or an artist's studio, with splashes of colourful flowers posed in unusually striking arrangements in striking vases.

Irises, bamboo, lisianthus, forsythia, anemones, roses and cherry blossoms on display in antique ceramic and copper pots, blocks of white birch and recycled materials. People walk into the store every day just to see what unusual sculptural bouquets she's created that day.

“The store is as much [a] community centre as [it is a] floral shop,” Banaei says. “People come here, we chat, my customers are my friends and my customers. They come here sometimes to talk. The children play in the store. I like to be surrounded by people. They trust me because they know I'm crazy about the flowers.”

Banaei says she's equally concerned about the environment. Recycling has become an important part of her creative process. You can see samples of her work on her website https://belfiore.shop.

“We recycle everything back to nature,” she adds. “I love working with my hands, being creative and connecting with people. My husband loves carpentry and gardening, so we're always making something.”

Nearly half the flowers she uses are from local greenhouses and greenhouses in southern Ontario.

Growing flowers in heated greenhouses in a Canadian winter is expensive, but for Banaei and her customers, it's worth the price if it leaves less of a carbon footprint on the environment and supports local entrepreneurs.

“We have roses for Valentine's Day, but it's challenging getting roses from Ecuador,” she says. “There's a shortage of flowers, and airline deliveries are a problem, especially now. So my focus is to buy as much stock from greenhouses five minutes from where I live. It's more expensive because they have to heat the greenhouses during the cold weather, but it's the right thing to do.”

In addition to being a creative artisan florist, Banaei is a headstrong entrepreneur, determined to keep her shop going despite the many Biblical challenges she and other fellow Elgin Street vendors have had to face over the last five years, including a two-year-long reconstruction, pandemic lockdowns and — more recently — the Freedom Convoy. Many more vulnerable restaurants and stores have closed.

Yet, Belfiore Flowers has managed not only to survive, but thrive, in part, because of Banaei's solidarity with her community, and her persistence to do whatever she has to do to keep the shop going.

“It's been a bumpy road,” she concedes.

The one thing she doesn't like about having her own business, though, is the paperwork.

“I don't like the accounting, so my husband does that job,” she says laughing. “My brain doesn't work that way at all.”