FLORA Flowers

FLORA Flowers Artist turned Flower Farmer & Florist. Growing extraordinary flowers for local people to enjoy.

Okay - that was a bit dramatic!But this could potentially be the last seed in NZ…This is Millet Purple Baron. Seed for t...
04/06/2026

Okay - that was a bit dramatic!

But this could potentially be the last seed in NZ…

This is Millet Purple Baron. Seed for this is no longer able to be imported into NZ (or so the seed supplier says).

Fortunately I had saved a bit of my own seed a few years ago and managed to grow a little crop this summer just to produce seed.

The resident pheasant also liked the seed, so by the time I realised I needed to cover the seed heads to stop him helping himself, we were pretty much down to this single seed head.

And now I’m not even sure this is on my grow list for the coming Summer season…still undecided…I don’t really use it in my own bouquets … I just sell it wholesale…

P.S. you never know when the seed you’ve saved will prove to be significant. I’m still very pleased I saved my ammobium seed all those years ago IYKYK 😜

It’s tulip planting season in NZ, and I keep seeing flower farmers showing ‘how I’m planting my tulip bulbs’. I keep se...
31/05/2026

It’s tulip planting season in NZ, and I keep seeing flower farmers showing ‘how I’m planting my tulip bulbs’.

I keep seeing them adding fertiliser which is something I don’t do!

Everything you need for this seasons flower is already in the bulb, so if you are harvesting by pulling out the bulb you are simply wasting your money in fertiliser (and who wants to waste money!)

I checked this with a Dutch tulip expert a few years ago, and he said no need to fertilise.

So use my tip and save yourself some $ or feel free to correct me if I’m wrong!

23/05/2026

The hard truth!

Even though I can plant dahlias right through until mid December and still get good flowers… it’s just too late to plant my collection of seedlings which I need to have a good flowering period so I can evaluate them fully.

I made this big mistake with a couple of hundred 3rd year seedling tubers this year, and it’s set me back a year to be able to do their final evaluation and release them.

In our particular climate (and I’m not totally sure about the science behind it, but potentially connected to day-length), the centre of our dahlias start ‘blowing open’ mid-late March.

While this is just part of the plants lifestyle (it’s the plant’s way of encouraging bees to come and pollinate it so it can make seeds), it’s not a trait we want to see all through the season…and some dahlias just can’t help themselves! As far as the seedling dahlias go, I would discard any varieties that have open centres early in their early flowers.

So the latest I’ll be planting my seedling dahlia tubers in future will be mid November.

And pictured are a late batch of dahlia seed I started late December. They had 100% open centres, but I’m sure it’s due to the time of year, so I’ll have to give most of these another chance next year (if I have space!) So I’ll be starting any new batches of dahlia seed in October from now on.

Hope that helps someone out there not make these same mistakes…because our time and space is precious aye!

P.S. this digital nomad gig is a bit unreliable, so the only music I could add to this reel was from a recording I took yesterday of some buskers in Madrid. Enjoy 🇪🇸🎻🎶

The satisfaction of a freshly prepared and planted cut flower patch!My daughter has purchased her first home and was thr...
10/05/2026

The satisfaction of a freshly prepared and planted cut flower patch!

My daughter has purchased her first home and was thrilled that it has a couple of raised garden beds.

We managed to get them cleared and planted during a flying visit this weekend (in between keeping up with a busy toddler)

So it probably wasn’t the way most mothers spent their Mother’s Day, but it was really nice working on setting up someone else’s flower patch, and I know it will bring her much joy!

We took down some of our larger grade seedlings from and are crossing our fingers that they cope with the Christchurch cold ❄️

In theory they should - we planted Iceland poppies, ammobium, statice and ranunculus, which are all cold tolerant…but I have no experience growing outside my warm climate!

Can anyone reassure me that they’ll survive 😂

With Mothers Day this Sunday, I’ve been getting plenty of enquires about flowers.We made the decision this Summer to onl...
05/05/2026

With Mothers Day this Sunday, I’ve been getting plenty of enquires about flowers.

We made the decision this Summer to only grow crops to harvest until the end of March (and never regretted that decision at all!)

But of course there’s always spare seedlings around here, and some got planted in a little trial bed, so we do have some flowers timed perfect for Mothers Day.

Only enough for the mothers in our own lives though! Sorry we’re not taking orders and won’t have bunches at the Joy Dispensary.

We’ll be taking the weekend off to celebrate (and recover from) an epic few weeks of hard yakka! And to visit some very special people 💚

You might think that having hundreds of thousands of seedlings passing through my hands each year, that I don’t grow my ...
28/04/2026

You might think that having hundreds of thousands of seedlings passing through my hands each year, that I don’t grow my own seedlings from seed anymore!

Wrong!

I still grow almost all of my own ‘easy’ ones like stock, bells of Ireland, strawflowers, statice, ammobium, cornflowers, nigella, godetia, feverfew, zinnias, sunflowers, celosia, marigolds, quinoa, orach, asters, amaranthus…. For me timing is everything (aiming for Christmas and Valentine’s Day flowers) and growing my own seedlings gives me better control of the timing.

But there’s a few things I leave to the experts and buy in as seedlings…ranunculus, anemones, lisianthus, larkspur, poppies, snapdragons, bupleurum, delphinium, trachelium and campanula. There’s just something about these varieties that make my success rate pretty low.

I panicked a little when I found out that seed hadn’t arrived in time to grow our next batch of white campanula, so I started some from seed myself. I’ve been thinking that I’ve lost my seed starting skills, and nearly threw this lot out, but here they are appearing after 14 days of sitting and taunting me!

Gosh they’re slow, and there’s still lots of ways I could kill them, so I think I’ll stick with leaving campanula seedling growing to the experts!

P.S. Is there anything that surprises you on my ‘easy’ list?

🌱

This dahlia kind of snuck up on me. To be honest, I don’t remember having a white dahlia this good in my batch of 2022 s...
24/04/2026

This dahlia kind of snuck up on me. To be honest, I don’t remember having a white dahlia this good in my batch of 2022 seedlings, but here she is! And she certainly paid her way in flowers this Summer!

To me she just screams WEDDING! White dahlias have been used en masse in just about every Summer wedding I’ve provided flowers for, and I like to have a variety of different sizes and forms to supply florists with so that it’s not too same-same.

So I’m very proud to introduce Flora’s ‘Pure Joy’ because she is just that!

She’s been my most commented on white so far, and I can see why with her pointy petals, high petal count and larger size. Technically she falls in the ‘small’ size range as defined by the NZ Dahlia Society (115 – 155mm) but as far as using dahlias in a bouquet goes, she’s towards the larger end of what I would use…I think I need to make my own guidelines for dahlia sizing and get me some of those funky dahlia sizing rings!

And now for the downside (because I did say we hadn’t found the perfect white seedling yet…and I like to think of myself as an honest person)… she had thin stems for her second flush of flowers this year. I grew her in a spot that got heavily shaded as the season progressed and the sun got lower, so I’m not sure what her stems would have been like if grown in more sun…

You’ll get a chance to add her to your collection in our tuber sale - coming July 2026

I very nearly ditched this dahlia in her fourth year! She had me scratching my head and wondering why on earth I had kep...
23/04/2026

I very nearly ditched this dahlia in her fourth year!

She had me scratching my head and wondering why on earth I had kept her for so long. She’s one of those dahlias that initially misbehaves by having a cluster of flowers on short stems rather than a single flower on a long stem.

BUT…luckily I was too busy (or too lazy?) to pull her out, and after cutting off that first little cluster of flowers, she rewarded me with a huge number of long strong side stems right until the end of the season.

I’m very glad I gave her a second, third and fourth chance, and I’d choose her to be part of my collection any day!

P.S. She’s a nice tidy white ball with a slight green button centre. And good strong stems….not perfect, but certainly prolific!

To be totally honest, we don’t think we’ve found the perfect white in our seedlings yet (Ryecroft Jan is a pretty high b...
21/04/2026

To be totally honest, we don’t think we’ve found the perfect white in our seedlings yet (Ryecroft Jan is a pretty high benchmark!).

But we have selected these 4 seedlings as our favourite whites over the past 3-4 years. They all have their different strengths…we’ll be releasing their names and descriptions over the coming days.

Do you love white dahlias…or do you prefer the bright colours?

20/04/2026

Glitch sorted - thanks 🙏
I think I’ll stick to my day job!

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Warkworth
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