Garden Style Valentines Flowers
Why Local Blooms are a romantic choice
Valentines Day flowers should feel like they’ve been gathered from a flourishing garden - full of movement, texture and life. Yet so many bouquets come wrapped tightly in plastic and far removed from the earth they were grown in.
For those choosing Valentines Day flowers in Bacchus Marsh and Melton, the difference between supermarket flowers and locally grown, florist designed is the difference between something mass produced and something truly alive.
Grown by the seasons, not forced by demand.
Locally grown flowers Vs Supermarket flowers
In February the gardens on our Bacchus Marsh flower farm begin to shift. The days are definitely warming up, but the nights can bring a nice cool differnce. Mornings feel quieter with the birdsong and the bees buzzing around the flowers.
The garden is moving quietly but eagerly, pushing up those beautiful stems that we all adore in our bouquets, think Blousy Dahlias, Bright and cheerful Sunflowers, Romantic Lisianthus just like a rose but fluffier! The land is preparing for Sumer abundance.
Local flowers belong to this moment.
Whilst Supermarket and imported flowers can still have a place in the flower story and can be an easy option and convenient for some, they can quite often travel thousand of miles to arrive perfectly uniform, each bouquet exactly the same. They often arrive tired before they even reach the vase, sometimes having spent weeks in transit and storage. By the time they bloom their journey is already behind them.
Local flowers are different. They have been harvested either the night before or on the morning of designing. They continue to open slowly, respond to the warmth of the room, and last just as nature intended, not sprayed with harsh chemicals to make them last artificially longer, lets enjoy our flowers as they were meant to be, straight from the earth- truly fresh.
Choosing local flowers in Bacchus Marsh and Melton isn’t about rejecting Valentines day traditiosn. It’s about choosing something more thoughtful,something seasonal. Local flowers and foliages, garden Roses, local community,
This Valentines day, if you’re looking for flowers that feel meaningful, consider choosing blooms grown close to home- flowers that are part of this landscape, this season and this moment. Our mixed bouquets and arrangements generally contain around 90-100% of our own grown flowers and foliages whilst the Rose options have been sourced from our local markets as that is a flower that we are not yet growing on our farm. When we do source flowers from the markets we try and choose Australian grown flowers first and whenever possible.
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June Farm Update
I thought I would drop in to say Hi, I’m still over here digging in the garden and thought I would give you a little update of what’s happening on the farm.
Autumn whilst things slows down in terms of harvesting flowers is actually one of the busiest seasons for us on the farm. Autumn is the time for lifting and dividing our favourite perennials, propagating plant stock, and giving the beds a good tidy up and feed with a layer of compost and dried leaves from around the property. Some of the perennials we are dividing include Veronica Skyler which we have in both white and a beautiful dark purple colour and is very handy in our bouquets. Solid Aster, I purchased a few plants this year and decided to divide those few plants up into about 2 new plants so Im very excited to see those bloom as they were a lovely soft lemon colour and I Know that this variety is very hardy and a great filler for my floristry work.
My hydrangea patch is still very young and establishing itself, I grow the Pee Gee Hydranges here as they seem to be able to tolerate a bit more sun that the others that require shady conditions which we just don’t have on our farm. Ive take a handful of cutting from the Hydrangea to see how they go.
Our Perennial Lily beds have been layered with a lovely thick layer of leaves which helps protect them from the frosty nights and will then break down into lovely rich nutrients for the plants. I jus did a count on my Lily’s over the weekend and including all types LA and OT lily’s we have over 4000 bulbs in the ground which sounds like way too many but I actually used every single stem in my work last year. I did purchase new Rose lilies this year so i’m is very excited to see those bloom as they have a much larger double lily flower then the LAs and a beautiful scent as well.
We have added another 100 Peony roots to the field this year as well ,so now I have 140 peonies in total which isn’t a huge amount but they are an investment and I should be able to propagate from them in the coming years.
Daffodils were another big buy this year with another 2000 going in the ground. I can remember many years ago before I even thought about being a flower farmer I would visit a daffodil Farm in Riddells Creek and buy large sacks of daffodils each year just for my garden and when I think back now I realise that maybe this flower farming thing was always in the back of my mind somewhere. Its quite amazing how our journeys turn out.
We’ve had a huge downpour of rain over the weekend so the tanks are full and the garden is well watered, I can breathe a little easier now knowing that water is not such an issue for us right now, I hope the rest of Aus can enjoy some of the lovely rain the we’ve just experience too.
Happy Gardening Mx
Autumn is in the air
The leaves are changing colour on our Maple trees that line our driveway, it is always my favourite time of year when these tress go from lush green leaves to a bright red and then fade to a golden amber.
Autumn is one of the busiest times for us here on the farm. With the changing seasons comes cutting back our dahlias to 1/3 to initiate the process of them dying down to rest over winter. As we don’t dig our beds we are now topping our beds with compost and then a layer of mulch on top of the compost to let it keep the moisture in and then breakdown a little in time for planting late in the season.
Today I planted out the first of our four ranunculus beds, I had one of my chickens beside me the whole time and she seemed to be scratching them back up as soon as I was planting them. I have added a net over the top of them to stop our free ranging chickens from causing too much havoc. Today I also planted out a lovely selection of Narcissus and Tulip bulbs into some terracotta pots to display around the garden.
We have already started most of our tender annuals in the greenhouse so the next few weeks will see us tending to those and planting them out when they are big enough.
I hope you get to spend some time in the garden or doing whatever it is that makes your heart happy.
Happy Gardening M.xx