There are flowers blooming among the paddocks full of grain around Tamworth in northern New South Wales, and mums on the land are planting them.
The women have all been looking for another avenue stream on their farms that lets them stay home with their babies.
Shona Robilliard began her cut-flower business, King George Farm, three years ago after she ditched her veggie patch for the beautiful blooms she now grows.
“I’ve always had veggie gardens … and I started playing with putting flower seeds in amongst the veggies just to attract the bees and the pollinators, and I really liked the flowers,” she said.
“I found myself just waiting and I couldn’t wait any longer for the veggies to finish so I could pull them out of the ground and plant more flowers.”
Eventually she decided she wasn’t planting vegetables any more.
A way to be home
Ms Robilliard made that decision three years ago, when she was also a first-time mum.
Now she has a second child, a four-month-old girl aptly named Poppy, who watches her mum work in the flower patch from a portacot in a shady spot in the paddock.
Ms Robilliard wanted to find something that would provide extra income and allow her to stay at home with her children.
She said she was not alone, with a boom of farming mums starting flower-cut businesses in the region in the past 18 months.
“Being on the land, gardening is something that a lot of us all do and it’s only natural just to start a little business from it. It’s great to see other women getting into it.”
Wedding flowers lead to farm
One of those other women is Ms Robilliard’s close friend, Narrabri farmer and fellow mum Sara Wheaton.
Her journey to becoming a flower farmer was a little different though — Ms Wheaton needed flowers for her wedding bouquet.
“I began growing flowers to add to our wedding … I actually had so many flowers I couldn’t give them away to friends and family,” she said.
“I took a bucket of flowers into the florist and said, ‘Look, you can have this bucket for free, but if you like them I’ll continue selling them’.”
Flash forward two years and Ms Wheaton is a new mum and she has expanded her flower patch, starting a business known as Stoney Creek Co to supply local florists.
Like Ms Robilliard, being a flower farmer has meant more time at home with her son.
“I take my son out there in the pram … it’s been a really nice process getting him out there and amongst the flowers,” Ms Wheaton said.
“It’s the perfect combination for me. I get up early in the morning and my husband will be inside with my son and I’ll go out and harvest for two to three hours [and] the harvest is done by the morning.”
A growing local industry
Northern Tablelands peony flower grower Barry Philp has been in the industry for more than 20 years.
He too has noticed a boom in flower farms across the New England-North West.
While the landscape is dominated by livestock and cropping, he said the future of the flower industry was strong with florists chasing local product.
“There are a lot of new people growing flowers popping up here, there and everywhere. You would be surprised where they are and that’s been quite exciting,” he said.
Key stories of the day for Australian primary producers, delivered each weekday afternoon.
Source: abc.net.au
