[jasonfried]

I got the idea for having a small bunch of fresh flowers on everyones office desk from the restaurant world.

I always like sitting down to a table at a restaurant that has a small simple arrangement of fresh flowers. It's a great detail and it brings color and life to your immediate surroundings. Plus, nature is the greatest designer so there's no better influence.

We have the flowers switched out weekly. They're different each week and each desk has a different arrangement. We also have weekly arrangements in the kitchen, the lounge area, and in the front entrance.

For those in Chicago, I highly recommend the good people at http://asraigarden.com for this service. They take great care of us.

[wybo]

We also do this, but instead of flowers, we chose plants. Being a bit of a nature-geek myself, my desk is particularly green, but everyone who wants, has at least one desk-plant in our office:

http://wybowiersma.net/pub/academia-desk.jpg

We also have some plants that don't fit on desks, like this - name says it all - elephant-ear plant:

http://wybowiersma.net/pub/academia-plant.jpg

We (http://Academia.edu) got them all from the plant-warehouse in downtown SF:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/plant-warehouse-san-francisco

[ForrestN]

I think it's a wonderful idea, and we do basically the same thing in our much smaller office (just one vase on the center table). When they're looking stale, we bring guests or interns to the flower shop to pick out the next arrangement.

edit: We go to A New Leaf in the Monadnock building a couple of blocks away from the office. Always a nice selection, changes frequently, and we can get a few beautiful stems for 5 or 6 dollars.