O'Rourke & Birch Florists Has Relocated To 1 Chase Avenue In Waterbury

WATERBURY, Conn. - May 9, 2023 - PRLog -- "O'Rourke & Birch has been a one-family-owned business for the past 100 years and known as a 'Waterbury Institution' for most of those years," commented Virginia O'Rourke Cookson, owner of O'Rourke & Birch Florists, president of O'Rourke & Birch, Inc., and a licensed Justice of the Peace.

Due to the City's current urban renewal project, O'Rourke & Birch recently needed to relocate due to the project's demolition of the building where the floral company was previously housed on Freight Street.

"Gratefully," O'Rourke Cookson stated, "we moved into the lovely former Orchid Florist space at 1 Chase Avenue in Waterbury and have kept on several of that shop's highly talented staff members." The 96-year old Orchid Florist business closed in 2022 due to the untimely passing of the shop's longtime owner, John Varanelli.

"Merging two greatly respected Waterbury floral shops and two floral design specialist teams has created an exceptional opportunity for us, and the customers of both shops," commented O'Rourke Cookson. "We have merged the highly-experienced talents of some of the Orchid's floral designers with the admirable talents of the O'Rourke & Birch designers, including Karen Fraser, who has been with the company for 40 years."

O'Rourke & Birch Florists was founded as a small shop at 417 North Main Street in 1922 by O'Rourke Cookson's father, John O'Rourke, and her aunt, Marie O'Rourke Birch when Marie was a teenager. O'Rourke Cookson purchased the business from them.

O'Rourke Cookson "grew up in this business" and began her floral career after graduating from college and then a floral design school. From her family, she inherited a very strong sense of community and charity, and today she is highly respected and widely recognized throughout the Waterbury area and is a notable contributor to many local and national organizations.

In 2013, O'Rourke & Birch Florists, Inc. received the nationally prestigious recognition as an elite, top-quality FTD Master Florist, one of only eight florists in Connecticut to receive this unique distinction. Also in 2013, O'Rourke Cookson received the Waterbury Regional Chamber's highly prestigious Volunteer of the Year Award.

O'Rourke Cookson is a member of the National Society of American Florists, FTD-Florist Transworld Delivery, and Teleflora Inc., a long-standing member of the Waterbury Regional Chamber of Commerce, a long-time member of the board of directors of the Greater Waterbury Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Business Women's Forum (BWF), and recipient of the 2000 Waterbury Regional Chamber Businesswoman of the Year Award.

To contact O'Rourke & Birch Florists, Inc. at 1 Chase Avenue in Waterbury, call 203-756-7857, email  greensandmore@aim.com, or visit www.orourkeandbirchflorist.com.