Making the most of one of the sunniest spots in our garden to grow sun loving perennials and annuals. This season (2025-26) has been one of the most challenging growing seasons since I started growing cut flowers to sell a decade ago. Unpredictable conditions, wildly fluctuating temperatures, stormy plant flattening winds, hail, and a wet, wet summer have all wreaked havoc. Trying to find a silver lining, I've realised it has helped me better understand the plants I grow and

Growing local flowers in New Zealand on a small scale, especially with three small children, is many things: joy, chaos, and constant learning to name a few. As a micro flower farmer, every season teaches me something new — often the hard way. Here are three hard-won lessons I’m still learning as I grow seasonal, locally grown flowers for floristry here in Dunedin NZ.

Perennial cut flowers are the back bone of my cutting garden; here is why.

I grow cut flowers for a living…..why would I encourage you to grow your own flowers? For the very reason that I grow cut flowers, and why we bring cut flowers into our houses in the first place - because it is food for our wellbeing, food for our souls.

When you think about cut flowers, I bet you don’t immediately think of Rhododendrons. Here in Dunedin, the Himalayan natives grow so well and have become so much a part of our city's identity, that we have a Rhododendron Festival at our local Botanic Garden. We would be remiss not to include them in our floral design to contribute a scene of place and season.

The Journey In 2018 we set about building a cut flower field in the steep muddy eastern facing field next to our house and garden. By no means the ideal location for a flower field, I was determined to create a space for growing on the land we had adjacent to my family's established gardens - which my mum had always called Maytrees, due to the hawthorns amongst the native scrub regeneration. At the time I was working in a beautiful florist shop, and as florists we had an i