Growing locally grown flowers in NZ: 3 hard-won lessons from Maytrees Garden

rosaallen
Apr 20
6 min read

Updated: 5 days ago

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.

ONE Timing in cut flower growing (and why I still get it wrong)

Timing is everything. Don't miss that wave or you will be pulling against the current. When you’re starting out in cut flower growing, it’s hard to know what to do and when. But even after years of experience, I still miss those critical windows thanks to…….well, life.

I am always fighting to get ahead before the spring growth. Jobs done then like; weeding perennials, soil amendment, and mulching will save huge amounts of time and energy later. It will kickstart growth, moisture retention and weed suppression for months, well into the spring and summer, therefore having a profound impact on productivity.

Freshly weeded and mulched flower beds at a micro flower farm

Getting ahead with winter weeded and mulched beds. The areas I miss are always problem areas all summer long.

It’s a constant juggle: sowing seeds at the right times, pricking out at the right time, planting out at the right time, avoiding root tightness, that sunny day and that heavy rain. Finding that perfect evening, with no kids’ extracurriculars, no rain forecast, enough energy and light, but not the hot sun, in order to foliar feed? I think I’m still waiting for it this season.

Getting seeds sown at the right time, pricked out, and or potted on, then planted out at the perfect time, is a constant juggle - timing is everything!

Hoe that bed before it gets away on you, or you’re stuck laboriously weeding around leggy plants. Net that bed before it is too tall, or you have to painstakingly shimmy the netting over it, or the next gale rolls in and it’s flat. Then there is harvest timing; picking at the right stage, the right time of day, and the right number of days before an event.

Then, don’t get me started on timing crops to avoid flushes at Christmas/New Year and early January when everyone is broke and/or on holiday and the florists are all closed. (Pretty please help me ride out my inevitable January flower flush this year by buying directly from our flower shop!)

So basically, the lesson is: do it on time or you will regret it.

(Yep, this one is very much a work in progress here.)

From the left: Aster novi-belgii (autumn asters) flop across a pathway, that should have been supported months before. One hot day without checking the tulips and three buckets full have flushed open (they are best picked in just opening bud for longevity and storage). Curating flowers for an event is a dance of harvest timing; picking at the right stage, the right time of day, and the right number of days before an event. I can't count how many times I have had the most gorgeous crop flushes (especially Antirrhinium (snapdragons)!) just between Christmas and New Year, when business is super slow and all the florists are closed.

TWO Balancing inspiration and profitability on a micro flower farm

Finding common ground between growing what you love, what is achievable, and what is productive and profitable is a constant balancing act. On my tiny micro flower farm, every square metre is planned to maximise a potential harvest, where every stem counts.

These are one hit perennial wonders that are not especially high cropping for their space, but provide a beautiful and unique sense of seasonality and inspiration. From left they are: Gladiolus papilio (butterfly gladioli), Eucomis comosa cultivars (pineapple lily) and Tricyrtis formosana (toadlily).

Yet I still struggle with the internal battle of growing what I love and growing what is high cropping, utilisable and saleable. I’ve had to give myself a stern talking-to about limiting the Eucomis (pineapple lily) and Gladioli papilio (butterfly gladioli) beds to just 2m each. Their short harvest window means the profit per m² is low, but I can’t let them go; I love them so. They’re perennial and bring a beautiful seasonality, returning each year with little maintenance. But they can’t compare in productivity to a heavy-cropping bed of cut-and-come-again annuals, like sweet William or cosmos, where you can pick up to 140 stems per metre of bed (my beds are 1.2m wide) over a season.

Then again, a few things that bloom only once and are not especially productive, such as Tricyrtis formosana (toadlily) become invaluable in the shoulder seasons when flowers are scarce.

Three high cropping cut and come again flowers that can produce a huge volume of flowers. From left; Dianthus 'Sweet Black Cherry'(sweet william), Antirrhinum 'Costa Apricot' (snapdragons) and Trachelium caeruleum 'Lake Michigan Purple'(throatwort).

I am learning to find the balance between growing what inspires me in my floristry, what enhances my work as a sustainable florist, what other florists want to buy, what is low maintenance and easy, what boosts my flowers in the shoulder seasons and what is most productive and profitable — so my small locally grown flower business can be as productive as my small area allows it.

THREE Working with your microclimate for locally grown flowers in NZ

The hardest-won lesson I’ve learned in cut flower growing is this: you need to recognise the limitations of your site and its climate, in order to embrace what thrives. Unfortunately, it takes time and experimentation to develop a deeper understanding of your garden's microclimates, and a lot of trial and error. But once you understand your garden’s idiosyncrasies, what once felt like challenges can become real opportunities. If your interested in help identifying your gardens microclimates check out my blog post on microclimates.

Maytrees Garden sits on a steep, east-facing hillside in Dunedin, with heavy clay soils, low winter sun, and a beautiful (but shady) backdrop of vegetation. The low winter light levels, high winter moisture and the slow draining clay soils make over-wintering really hard, with root rot and downy and powdery mildew rampant. We also don’t get the summer heat needed for heat-loving annuals like zinnias and celosia. It’s embarrassing how many times I’ve tried to grow zinnias (apparently one of the easiest cut flowers for beginners!) but they often don’t even survive, let alone thrive. So I’ve learned to focus on what I know thrives, and allow myself just a few new experiments each year.

Where we are located in Dunedin doesn't get the winter sun levels for some spring flowers, or the summer heat to grow some heat loving annuals. From left; A small handful of Italian Ranuculus that I managed to nurse through the powdery mildewed winter. My only semi-successful attempt at growing Zinnia - these are Zinnia 'Oklahoma Salmon'. Limonium 'QIS Apricot' (statice) - I have very sporadic success with statice, it just rains too much to avoid root rot over winter and the flowers are ruined easily by wet.

On the bright side, hardy annuals like Scabiosa (pincushion flowers), Dianthus barbatus (sweet William), Antirrhinum (snapdragons), Clarkia (godetia or silkflower), Ammi majus (queen Anne's lace), Cerinthe major (honeywort), Moluccella laevis (bells of Ireland) and Helichrysum (strawflowers) can thrive here, forming a mainstay of our seasonal annual flower production.

Productive hardy annuals that prosper here. From the left; Moluccella laevis (bells of Ireland), Antirrhinum 'Potomac Appleblossom' (snapdragons), Ammi majus 'Graceland' (Queen Anne's lace), Cerinthe 'Honey Blue' (honeywort).

Embracing our shady microclimates through shade-tolerant perennials has been a revelation for us. The challenges of our site have even become the catalyst for a new opportunity at Maytrees — selling perennial plants online (you can check out our online perennial plant store if you like!) and via sale days, so that you can produce beautiful, locally grown flowers across a range of garden microclimates at home.

Every season has more to teach me, and I look forward to learning more next year, but perhaps some of these lessons might resonate with you, or others growing seasonal flowers here in NZ.