WildFlowers Go West!

Our Walking on the Wildside and associated grower events held in September in the Perth area were a resounding success! Growers and florists from several states joined local industry members to see and learn  more about wildflowers.

For florists and flower lovers Walking on the Wildside provided an inspirational evening floral demonstration held at Tesselaar Flowers on Thursday September 19.

Attendees made the most of seeing premium quality Australian and South African wildflowers and foliages up close, including some new and unusual products. Internationally renowned floral designer, David Berger, was joined by talented Sydney florist Bethany Scott, known for her unique wildflower designs. They created an extensive range of floral arrangements including delicate bouquets, beautiful vase arrangements and table centerpieces, wreaths and large installations.

Our compere for the evening was none other than Craig Scott, well-known wildflower grower and Sydney Market wholesaler.

Attendees were able to get up close to admire the detail in the arrangements; a lucky few took one of them home if their silent auction bid was successful.

David has been engaged in every facet of Floristry during his career and was fresh off the plane from Paris – he had been busy judging at the Floristry WorldSkills Competition in Lyon.

Bethany shares her love of Australian native flowers with the local community via her shop, BESS Paddington, following 15 years working as a florist in Sydney and London.

Both florists as well as Craig shared tips and tricks as they worked, discussing for example changes in styles of wedding bouquets – there’s been a return to using trailing items and emphasizing the colours of the bride’s dress. David used a tomato trellis to support large arrangements featuring heavy branches and noted that it’s often not much more work to make a pair of arrangements to provide more impact in a shop window or corporate venue.

Bethany loves to make sure that the wispiness and wildness of the wildflowers she uses shines through. She noted that ‘lots of people say they don’t like natives because they haven’t seen the amazing colours and textures available’.

David uses products with a similar vase life together and noted that ‘it’s important to let customers know the difference between Australian native and South African flowers’. ‘There’s no such thing as overeducating customers’, he added.

Among the ‘new’ products being used were new releases of kangaroo paws developed by the team at Perth Kings Park & Botanical Garden through Helix Australia and signature east coast flowers like flannel flowers shipped across for the event.

The following day, David held a ‘strictly limited’ morning workshop, this time at Wafex Australia on the outskirts of Perth. Participants watched David make 2 items and then it was their turn to use the materials provided to make an arrangement and then …

Not to be left out, wildflower growers were catered for in a busy 2 day program. Day 1 featured a morning tour of the procurement and production facilities of Wafex, where products from farms across Western Australia are prepared and dispatched across the world. It was fascinating to learn about their quality program, batch tracking and live inventory tracking systems that ensure flowers reach the end customer as quickly as possible. We learnt lots about waxflowers as well as the ins and outs of dyeing flowers.

In the afternoon, growers visited the stunning Kings Park and Botanic Garden at the peak of the annual spring festival. There was a rare opportunity to tour the breeding and development area hosted by Digby Growns, Senior Plant Breeder and renowned breeder of numerous varieties of kangaroo paw, Geraldton wax and Boronia.  Digby explained the royalty scheme that funds the research and development program involving a team of 5 staff. We saw the results in the trial nursery, where only the most exceptional hybrids make it through to further development.

Day two was a bus trip to two farms north of Perth. First up was the family-run Plantation Wildflowers where we saw several crops including Isopogon, Macropidia (the green and black kangaroo paw), Banksias and waxflowers. Nina explained how they train the wax plants to be tough by only applying ‘rescue watering’ over summer when absolutely necessary.

After lunch it was on to Harris Farm, Wafex’s large waxflower plantation which also hosts the Helix Australia breeding and trial crops. Farm manager Raymond showed us some of the new varieties and shared his love to ‘data’ to keep tack of everything on the farm. The sandy soil, lack of frosts and ideal daylength make it one of the best wax farms in the world.

Thank you to our event sponsors and the farm hosts: Tesselaar Flowers, Wafex, East Coast Wildflowers,  Apack, Plantation Wildflowers and Harris Farm. We couldn’t have done this without them!