Azi Flowers

Azi Flowers is located at 3045 Columbia Pike, Arlington, VA 22204. It is owned and operated by Azeb Woldie. She and her team can create and deliver floral arrangements for any occasion. 

Excerpted from ArlNow: "When florist and collage artist Azeb Woldie fled Ethiopia after being harassed and imprisoned by the government, she settled on Columbia Pike and began working with a flower shop in Alexandria. Now, she owns her own flower shop on Columbia Pike.

“I am a fierce entrepreneur and a fighter, and I only see things in a positive way and I use all negatives to develop my business as opportunities.” From a young age, she remembers painting and playing with colors, eventually moving into collage art, which was exhibited in art galleries in Ethiopia. She worked with flowers for more than 15 years in Ethiopia and during that time, opened a photography and film school with her youngest brother in Addis Ababa... Her students began making films that expressed their views on human rights, put her at odds with the Ethiopian government, which accused her school of producing photojournalists who opposed the state... “I was harassed, imprisoned there,.. Finally I just could not go on where I had to flee the country and come to the United States.”

Now, she is settled on Columbia Pike, where she says people are encouraging and friendly, helping her along as she works to grow her new flower shop. She says the flower business is like a jigsaw puzzle of promotion, marketing, financial capacity and networking.

“I am working my level best to put the different pieces in my capacity to land in their place, but not all pieces are coming together,” she said... She finds solace in how people turn to flowers to express their joy and their sadness. Woldie says she enjoys making arrangements for funerals and for weddings the most because of the milestones they communicate.

“A funeral is the last day of life, and showing your love with beautiful arrangements gives the living solace and shows their affection for the passing,” she said. “A wedding is another life event where the two people have a new beginning in life, and at that juncture it is a way of showing a delightful beginning.”

Woldie says flowers are a natural way to show “love, affection and caring... One can even see the flower beds in the garden or flower pots at your doorstep and [get] a good feeling... It is nature’s way of smiling at you [against] all odds.”

Photography by Lloyd Wolf.