bouquets of blessings

I am trying my hand to grow farm fresh flowers to sell.

A little enterprise from home, making the most of here and now. We have a beautiful little property with the most marvellous soil, a plentiful supply of water from a large dam and an excellent temperate climate to grow all my favourites.

I was born in the wrong country.

Natives have no place in my garden. They are relegated to "outside the fence"!

My heart is drawn to flowers with soul. And fragrance. A must for real flowers!

Honeysuckle, sweet peas, clove-scented dianthus, old fashioned roses, jonquils and heliotrope.

And stocks. Lots of stocks! 

My hubby jokes that I have a vested interest in stocks and shares.

I love stocks and I love to share them.

Bouquets of blessings they're called.

I am trying to sell them too. It's been an interesting journey to finally grow them successfully. This is my fourth year. 

A 'slow flower' business. Real flowers grown the old fashioned way. No chemicals or hot houses. Just clean fresh country air. Maybe that's why they smell so good!

I would like to earn some money to tuck away in an adventure fund, yet I don't want to compromise my job at home as a homeschooling mama. 

So....we'll see how we go.

When I ordered the first lot of seedlings, they were two months earlier than I expected. 

Now they're flowering, so we have traditional spring flowers in the middle of winter! 

The loungeroom smells delicious with their scent.

I always planned to have these beauties as a feature flower in a bouquet.  

Last year, they all came out into flower while everything else was entrenched in winter mode.

They were quite happy to stand alone!  Majestic magenta blooms that just got bigger and bigger as the buds filled out and lengthened to about 30 cms.

This year, I thought I planned things better by planting white stocks with Queen Anne’s lace and Irish bells. Only the stocks flowered early again!

As I wandered around with white stocks in hand, I gradually gathered other bits and pieces to fill out into a beautiful bunch.  Variegated euphorbia, green cobea scandens buds,  frothy  white elderflower heads and some surprising additions of salvia buds and leaves that smell like glace pineapple.