The ultimate cut flower offering

I never wanted to live on a farm, but life has a way of bringing the unexpected and making it even more glorious than our own carefully crafted plans. While on maternity leave from my role as a paediatric speech pathologist, I became interested in growing flowers. A gifted bunch of home-grown peonies led me down a rabbit hole of researching these gorgeous blooms as I wondered if I could grow my own.

I read everything I could get my hands on – from library books on growing flowers to blog posts. My husband Ethan and I visited as many flower farms as I could find that were open to the public. Peonies and dahlias were at the top of my flower wish list. 

Ethan grew up on a rural property in the Wimmera and it was his desire to have some acreage, plant an orchard and raise some chickens and sheep. I was now fully on board with finding a few acres where I could grow a cutting garden and embrace my newfound hobby. Eventually we purchased 20 acres of fertile land in the potato-growing district of Bungaree.

While we were renting in town and waiting for our house to be built, my collection of potted plants soon took over a large portion of our rental property’s yard. 

The very first dahlias I purchased were from The Diggers Club back in 2015. The variety was ‘Café Au Lait’ and I had fallen in love with its wavy petals and creamy, romantic colouring. It hadn’t previously been available in Australia so when I saw it as a new release in the Diggers magazine, I quickly ordered four to begin my collection.

The first month we moved to our property at Bungaree, Ethan and I planted out 500 dahlias. We sold those first flowers to an edible flower farm, where the chefs used them to garnish their dishes. Dahlia petals are similar in texture to a chewy lettuce leaf and the flavour of the petal varies with the colour pigment – some taste bitter, like radicchio or spicy like roquette. The red-toned petals tend to have a slightly sweeter flavour.

Over time we have connected with florists and now all our flowers are sold within the cut-flower industry. Our farm has grown from the initial four potted dahlias at our rental to a two-acre field containing over 17,000 dahlia plants. We regularly supply a wholesaler in Melbourne with fresh-cut dahlias, as well as supplying many florists directly from the farm and a few local cafés with bunches. We also run a few on-farm events each year, such as dahlia dividing workshops and afternoon teas in the flower field.

As the farm has grown, we have cultivated an impressive range of beautiful high-quality cut flower dahlias, both from our own breeding and through collecting from other growers. Over winter we now supply our sleeping dahlia tubers to home gardeners and other flower farms around Australia.

Our dahlias are entirely field-grown and I love working with the seasons. There’s always something to look forward to and I find the rhythm of planting, harvesting, digging, dividing, packing orders and field planning incredibly satisfying.

Whilst it was never our intention for Florelie to become a full-time job, I now can’t imagine doing anything else. We have a fantastic little team and Ethan has left his previous role as an agronomist for a vegetable seed company to join forces with me, full time on the farm.

We experimented with growing dahlias from seed right at the beginning of our journey. Dahlia breeding has captivated me with the endless possibilities it provides in creating an incredible range of colour, shape and size of dahlia varieties. From large, wavy-petalled blooms like those of ‘Florelie Whipped Cream’ to the tiny, neat, honeycomb-like petals of pompons like ‘Little Peaches’.

‘Florelie Cosmic Romance’ is one of my favourite dahlias that we’ve bred so far. The deep red blooms are enhanced with white-tipped petals, resulting in a striking display in both the garden and vase.

Typically, we harvest dahlias from late January until late April when Jack Frost throws his icy cloak over the beds and our season comes to an end.