The gifting industry is lacking in imagination these days. Boxes of chocolates, themed gift baskets, and edible arrangements are kind gestures but they’re often overused and lacking in innovation. While the gift of flowers is timeless, brands such as Lovepot are taking things up a few notches by offering luxurious floral arrangements that include high-quality hemp.
Lovepot founder Cevon Lee Iny has led a successful career in the fashion and jewelry industries. She’s secured roles managing production at Gucci factories in Italy, spent years as a Playboy wardrobe stylist, and sold jewelry at Jacquie Aiche, a high-end jewelry company based in Los Angeles that has gone on to dedicate an entire collection to cannabis-themed jewelry pieces.
Through working in those industries, Iny realized that the cannabis industry did not yet offer specialty products for those who prefer style and luxury.
“I just realized that there were all these people like me, who are very smart, they’re very successful, they have cool style, you know what I mean? And there’s just nothing out there for them,” Iny says.
So she founded the lifestyle blog House of Eden in 2017 as a way to fill that niche including an 18k gold-plated vaporizer. Next in 2020, Iny created Lovepot to offer premium hemp flower arrangements.
The Luxury of Lovepot
Lovepot bouquets are offered in two arranged varieties: fresh and dried. Currently, fresh bouquets are only available in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Each one includes a variety of decorative hemp leaves, as well as smokable hemp flowers that can be dried and enjoyed later.
The hemp strains used in these fresh floral arrangements are Hula Girl (a sativa-leaning strain that features bright, vibrant green leaves) or Blue Moon (which has a natural, purple hue that’s darker and “less leafy, but more nuggy,” Iny explains).
Lovepot’s dry hemp arrangements can be shipped anywhere across the nation and include dried hemp buds that can be plucked off of the stem and smoked immediately. The brand also offers a few other unique giftable items, such hemp pre-rolls, and a “Nuggs and Kisses Box,” which includes buds sitting in wrappers similar to a box of chocolates.
Perfecting the Process
Putting together these floral hemp arrangements may sound easy enough, but Iny went through a lot of trial and error to make Lovepot a reality.
“I came from like a luxury fashion background and ended up in flowers but flowers are quite expensive [as a] luxury item and it’s a very challenging business,” Iny says.
In the beginning, she says that it took about six months to figure out the best time to cut the hemp stems.
“And I’d say that this is what would differentiate me from anybody else who would want to do what we do [at Lovepot]… We had to figure out exactly what week we could cut [the hemp], where it still stayed leafy but still had nugs that you could cure. We had to figure out how to transport it. We had to figure out how to keep it alive,” Iny explains.
It was most important to figure out how to preserve fresh hemp materials, but it also took time to find the right farmers who understood Iny’s vision. She estimates that she contacted 30 farmers, from California, Oregon and even Kentucky, trying to find someone who was able to provide what she needed.
“A lot of farmers, especially the men, were like OK, it wasn’t a large enough minimum order for them,” Iny says. “And to stop their production process to go out into the field and cut these stems when I can only order so much at a time because I have to sell it while it’s fresh—that’s been the biggest challenge of Lovepot.”
Eventually she found the perfect partner with an all-women grow team at Nevada Crest Farms, based in Pahrump, Nevada (located west of Las Vegas on the border of Nevada and California). Nevada Crest Farms cultivates hemp in a greenhouse year-round, and they’re able to continually have plants growing so that stems are readily available for Lovepot.
“I have amazing women who understand what I’m doing, who believe in the long-term vision. Honestly, like the women growers, they just believe in what I’m trying to create and are supporting my vision, and they have a section in their grow just for us at all times, which is so cool,” says Iny.
Events and Beyond
While Iny enjoys creating aesthetically pleasing hemp bouquets for individual orders, she also loves curating floral hemp displays for private events.
In the past, Lovepot has worked on a women’s event hosted by Curaleaf, which featured a 20-foot wall of colorful flowers and hemp. The brand has also experimented with decorating a massive bathtub for a private dispensary party (complete with floating hemp leaves and candles). Lovepot also created a stunning display at the High Times 100 event in 2022, which featured an ombre display of red and pink roses mixed with hemp gracefully cascading out of the open door of a vintage Mercedes-Benz convertible.
From stunning single bouquets to lavish event displays, Lovepot continues to impress with a wow-factor for every occasion. Iny shares that she’d love to expand Lovepot’s footprint into new markets, but for now Iny looks to keep expanding the blend of cannabis and luxury as the world continues to shed the Stoner stigma.
This article was originally published in the March 2023 issue of High Times Magazine.
