It's been a mad month! Early May is always a busy time on a flower farm - Mother's Day is one of the great flower-giving occasions of the year. It happens in late autumn here in the southern hemisphere, just when proteas and leucadendrons are really blooming well. This year I was organised - it was still busy, but things were under control!
There were lots of local orders this year and we had a ball putting everything together. We did lots of seasonal bouquets of various sizes, and some boxed arrangements - something I'm just trying my hand at. I've not had any florist training but what I lack in technique, I hope I make up for in enthusiasm for the flowers themselves.
The Pink Ice Protea are really clear and lovely at this time of year. They were the stars of the show, and set off really well with a variety of leucadendrons and foliage. I've used some lovely grevillea foliage, some banksia, and some thryptomene which seems to be popping out early this year. The white flowers are a lemon scented tea tree flower which are just gorgeous at the end of autumn. And they smell good too!
The leucadendrons seem to be colouring up early this year. Maui Sunset are lovely and pink, and the Inca Gold, whilst not at their stunning yellow best, are definitely looking golden, showing off their red tips. It was great to have a variety to play with when putting it all together.
The morning after mother's day we had a nasty surprise when we found our baby dangerously ill. She was rushed to hospital (an hour and a half by road ambulance). She is ok now, but it was a shock and its taken us a while to recover from it all. Combined with a deadline for an exhibition of linoprints that I've been working on and May was definitely what I'd call MAD!
But what I love about growing flowers is the calming measured quality that they give to your life. They keep growing and blooming, and the cycles keep ticking over. When you plant something, it seems like it will take ages to give you any flowers, but life gets busy and time goes on, and before you know it those tiny plants are producing flowers and needing a prune! They add such beauty to life. I think they give more than they take.
And now, we're into winter. We've got major infrastructure projects planned for around the farm over the next few months, including a new flower shed. I'm looking forward to the winter season and all that it will bring!
