Ep 003 - Wildly Abigail, Slow Flowers and Floral Artistry.

In this episode Averill and Bernadette interview Abigail, from Wildly Abigail a floral concept store in Launceston, Tasmania.  Abigail discusses why her store advocates eco ethical choices that care for the Earth and local community.

Transcript

Before we start, Seedy Chats would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri country, the land on which we garden, our land's first gardeners and caretakers. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. Welcome to Seedy Chats, the podcast where imperfect gardeners, Avril, that's me, and Bernadette. Hi, that's me. Chat about our favorite topics, gardening and life. So whether you're new to gardening, a seasoned pro or somewhere in between, join us on our journey to be mindful in gardening and life in general. bathing. Oh it's very nice. Do you like it? Have you ever, I mean you probably know what wattle smells like Abigail? It's wattle oil. I didn't know you could get it. I'm just gonna bathe in it. Where'd you get it from? A candle shop. I don't know whether you should use that on your skin though. Oh look. I'm sure you'd feel bad. I don't know about that. That's from making candles for a test. What do you think? Oh it kind of smells like jasmine and lilac. It's very beautiful, very pretty. So I told you. Yeah, okay. As long as you don't comment on what happened to me last week. Hypes. No, my eyes, I decided to go and get my eyebrows waxed and eyelashes tinted, something I haven't had done in ages. Maybe I should be telling this story. This is good content, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot anyway. So, and I went to bed, so I got it done on the Friday. Thought I looked spectacular after getting it done. So much so I was leaving Kingston thinking, who can I meet, who can I meet when I'm here? Yeah, I wanna run into someone. I'm gonna phone my friend Julie. Phoning all your ex-boyfriends. I'm in Kingston. Oh, I don't know, Annie here, I'm burning it. She came and met me and then I woke up Saturday morning completely swollen. I had a allergic reaction the whole way round. It was so bad. I couldn't open my eyes till the following Tuesday. It was in a bad way. That served me right. It was kind of like a sexy sultry version of you though. Like smoky eyes. Callum kept looking at me going, mommy what's wrong with you? I don't think photographs, pictures didn't pick up the extent of how swollen I was. She just wore sunglasses around me like she goes, lucky that we're podcasting stars now and I've got an excuse to walk around like a celebrité. Welcome to a very exciting episode three and our very first interview. Our very first guest speaker and today we have Abigail from Wildly Abigail. And Abigail is a florist and artist based in Launceston. I would like to call you a florist. A florist. Have you ever heard that word before? Can't say I have. Should I trade market or something? I love it. It might sound a bit rude though, doesn't it? So apologies if it does. A florist, maybe you have to instantly explain with floral artist. A floral artist. So Wally Abigail Floristry specialises in flowers for weddings and elopements, artistic floral installations for events, flowers for corporate functions and her concept store that has just opened in Launceston. So congratulations about that. Has creative workshops. It's a gallery for Tasmanian artists. plants and has some beautiful handmade ceramics and handmade products. And most interestingly for me, Wildly Abigail advocates an eco ethical choices that care for the earth and our community, which aligns a lot with what we talk and care about. And that's why we've got you on the show today. So welcome. That's right. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. That's awesome. We just wanted to really just find out. why you have opened your concept store. Like tell us a little bit about yourself. How have you got to where you've come to? Yeah, sure. Well, I, opening a shop was never, was never on the agenda. It was very much a spur of the moment. But then also you think... all the things that I've done in the past. I've been a florist now for eight years, so everything that's happened in that time has led to this point. And it took encouragement from my brother Craig and my sister Amy and my dear mum and they all were really supportive and just like yeah we should open up a shop. Absolutely. And it is, may I say, one of the most beautiful shops. We'll share some photos on our Seedy Chats Instagram, but it's just aesthetically so pleasing to the eye. It's gorgeous. And I'm talking to you and I'm looking in the background. Because when I said, you know, locally handmade ceramics, I was like, what else can I see in the back there? Yeah, so it does. It looks absolutely fabulous. You play your cards right, Abigail. There might be a signed picture of Avril and I that we can post down for you to display. Oh Bernadette, sorry. Could we start with explaining for our listeners what a slow florist is? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Is that the right term? Yeah, well, explain to us. Slow flowers is kind of the hot term, I suppose, for sustainability in floristry. Slow flowers. And what does slow flowers mean? It means that we're advocating for flowers that aren't shipped around the wells. That's the big one. So supporting local farmers, really reducing our carbon footprint by not buying flowers in from the markets on the mainland. For context, the flower market is global. It's huge. It's worth billions every year. And flowers are flown all over the wells. And they come into Australia, into Sydney and Melbourne. And then they're dispersed over the country from there. And so then they also have to be flown into Tasmania. So especially roses come in very cheap. from countries like Cambodia and Ecuador and Kenya. And they go through lots of rigorous quarantine and treatments to kill diseases. And then to come into Tasmania, they have to be treated again. So the whole industry, I mean, if you're looking at, so there's always the carbon footprint. And then there's also the... impact on the earth when we're using such harsh chemicals and then layers of harsh chemicals. That's right yeah. So it's about slowing that process down and being more in tune with the seasons and what is actually available locally in harmony with the seasons. For me that even extends to today we had a cracker of a day, beautiful spring day. in Canberra and it was probably the first spectacular day that we've had of the season and I was saying to my partner, it's so much better because we've had winter. If every day was like this you'd get complacent and I feel the same about flowers when they're in season or tomatoes when they're in season. Having the shorter availability to me makes it more exciting, more special to get them when they're in season. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely and I know just you mentioning there my ignorance to the whole floral industry. In the past, I have been guilty of purchasing flowers and then them dying off and then just throwing them out my compost and not really understanding actually they've gone through a huge process should I even be composting them. Should we be composting them? No. Wow. I worked on a flower farm south of Hobart for four years. And this is a small open air flower farm. So no poly tunnels or anything like that. So very seasonal. And yeah, if there was any ever, sometimes we would have to use, we did weddings there. And every now and then there will be some roses that we would have to sub. to use because there wasn't enough product. And sometimes the weddings demand a very particular flower that we can't get in Tasmania. Anyway. So when those leaves would be stripped and the stems cut, it was quite strict. We weren't to put those onto the compost because the pesticides and herbicides, they kill the microorganisms in the soil. For up to four or five years, it can take for the soil to recover, depending on the volume, from that sort of introduction. You can imagine if it's doing that to the soil and it should be in the compost. What is it doing? to our pollinators and everything else in our ecosystem. I had, I never. And I had no concept at all that so many flowers would come from overseas because I just thought a flower has a short shelf life and it must be coming from somewhere in Australia. That's right. I had the same and I went one step further because I am after, you know, knowing Abigail and her passion and learning a lot through you. Then I decided I would only buy a native Australian natives. So there was a flower place that I would go to a flower market. And that's all I would buy. until then I found out they weren't even grown in Australia. The Australian natives weren't grown in Australia. I was so embarrassed I was because I kind of was like well like you know I'm ticking all the boxes I'm doing everything right. Eco warrior! No, no yeah so I was until and I had that because I'm a talker I chat to you know I'll go in and the guy that was there behind the counter I was like how beautiful are these look at the structure of them like and he was, yeah, it was him that enlightened me that they had grown in, I think it was Africa, would predominantly Australian. Yeah, I know. bit of a fail, totally. But I think it's a fail a lot of people, unfortunately. Absolutely. It's a big problem in the industry. There's no consumer transparency. It's a massive discussion in this industry that you know when you have on food labeling, really basic information, this is where the food has been made. So when you go to the supermarket, you can make a choice. That labeling doesn't exist. as a standardised thing in Australia. So when you go to buy your flowers there is no. And is there an industry or someone that can, is there a way that that could be legislated potentially? People are trying and it has been talked about for a long time. I think that they're just, I don't know, resistant. It's a huge industry. It's like anything. I mean, I just went to a sustainable that word again, symposium. And even just with clothes and people, it's the it's not understanding. People don't understand the concept. However, moving forward, if we did have a system in place that people know and these conversations have to start somewhere. So I think people like yourselves. It's really important to advocate and spread that message. Advocate and show the story because people don't understand. So you show like a lot of your stories on social media. And I think that's so important because it's got to start small. And it doesn't have to be hard. You don't have to be looking into everything. It shouldn't be hard. You should, like you say, be able to look at two bunches of flowers and make the door and just see one in Australia, one from Cambodia, wherever it may be and go off. You know, this aligns more with what I want to do instead of having to go down this rabbit hole of investigation. Yeah, it's probably more the carbon footprint. stars on food although they're very misleading. I do eat a four and a half star cereal. That is definitely not healthy. So is that part of your why? So you said you've had eight years in the florist as a florist, working as a florist and and what inspires you and gets you up in the morning and motivates you to do that kind of work? I think it's really Yeah, then there needs to be more conversation about this. And I feel really inspired to be a florist in this way. So supporting local farms. I find it super interesting and fun being in tune with the flowers that are available locally. And like you were saying before, I get really excited. because you know now that the ranunculus are on and you know last week it was anemones and you know then in amongst the peonies it'll be coming and that's only like a few weeks that they're around and I just find it so much more exciting than say my stint in a retail florist that buys a lot of flowers in from the mainland you just get the same flowers all the time because like any standardized massive corporate industry you know, you know what you're gonna get. And when you get, when you've got the flowers coming seasonally like that, I imagine it would inspire your arraign, like that's gonna drive... where you take your arrangement on what you're going to do as well. Instead of having the stock standard, that's gotta give you fresh inspiration. That's right, yeah. But I mean, like we said, if you have it all the time, you become very complacent with it and it's just, it gets a bit normal. So having seasonal. As bland as a supermarket tomato. That's it, because hey, I don't eat supermarket tomatoes, but I eat the tomatoes that I grow because they're pretty special. So yeah, it does make a huge difference. I can see in the background that you've got a lot of dried flowers as well. So is that something then when something isn't in season that you can revert to some of your dried stock? Yeah, definitely. I think over summer and autumn, it's a great time to be harvesting the abundant crops and drying them, because then in winter it gives me product to work with. Yes. And also some flowers just look absolutely awesome dried. So they do. I've got a question. Sure. I've been drying flowers for two weeks now and I was told ranuncula's are amazing dried and mine just shriveled up into non-existence. Am I doing something wrong? Interesting. I wouldn't have really said that ranuncs are great dried. I mean- Bloody internet. I dry them. So I've made artworks. I make a lot of artwork with flowers and I went through this phase of making frames with dried flowers behind the glass. And Ranunculus was really good to dry it flat. And it goes very like tissue papery, but it's very fragile, which is why I say it doesn't have the sturdiness to like hold as a dried flower. But- So chuck it in the flour press. I was gonna say flour press. I would try something else. I do, a children's one. You do have a, I do remember that. You do have a children's one. Yeah, perfect. It still works. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you can dry flowers in between books, right? How do you do it as a professional? Depends on the flower. If I'm drying it to use in an arrangement, so because they're quite tough and they'll stay strong. Honestly, I just. hang it upside down. And if I'm drying it for artwork and I want it to be flat, so pressed. I actually don't do it between books, just because I like to keep the form of it a little bit. For creative sake. So I literally just chop the heads and just put them on some brown paper and away from the sunlight and leave them just like that. Yeah, right. So you don't have to press them. Did you sort of press them with your hand? Oh, pre-press. Yeah. Oh. No, that's awesome. There you go. So you're overthinking it. There you go. We just overthink it, right? It's extremely uncomplicated. Yeah. You're right. Why is it important for you to source locally? Uh. Because it connects to the local community. I mean, there are some absolutely awesome people out here. I've just moved to the north of Tassie as well. So now I'm connecting to a new community because I'm from the south of Tassie and really was quite involved with the flower community down there. So now there's quite a different community up here. So it's a really nice way to... connect with the people who care about flowers in the same way that I care about flowers. And that's, you know, seasonally and organically and just loving them for what they are rather than trying to control, control the aspects. So, yeah, I think it's super important to find those like-minded people. So it's great that you can find, like that you have that community. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I love... the people that are supplying flowers to my shop. They have a their early an early farm. So in their second year, and they're just so passionate and they just yeah, they're so passionate about all different types of flowers. And I love the rapport of them bouncing off me and asking that that's great. Well, yeah, like what flowers do you want? Yeah, because we can then learn to grow. And then because I've worked on a flower farm as well, there's a lot of like, oh, that dialogue is just so, integrating that dialogue into my business model. It's just, yeah, it's great. That's beautiful. And you can grow together. I mean, it sounds a bit corny, doesn't it? But I think it's fantastic that you can grow together. Yeah. And how have you found that you've been received in the community with the new shop and your ethos? Super positively. Yeah, there's a really awesome, we're going to throw out the word again, community. Yeah, no, it's an important word. Yeah, but there is a really great community in Launceston who are talking a lot about sustainability and bringing things back to basics. For example, there are a couple here. uh who started up a business a year ago called Golden Brown and they are composting um they're composting coffee grounds from local cafes. Fantastic yeah. The difference that they have made in one year and the conversations that they have managed to generate is astounding. They've already diverted I think like 15 000 kilograms of coffee grounds from landfill. That would have gone into landfill yeah. Yeah yeah and the and the way that they've um integrated that into the community gardens in Monceston is also just amazing, the work that they're doing. So having people like that and then the things that I'm doing and we're all getting chatting and yeah, it's just, it's great. So exciting. And it really, it really motivates me as well, because you might get talking to someone that doesn't understand. Like they just may not have thought about it. They may not have thought about all the coffee grounds. You only know what you know. You only know what you know. And I know I've got friends that don't garden. And when they hear me... talk or like about composting or worms, all of a sudden it's like a spark goes off. You can see it in their eyes and that's what it's all about because those those conversations have to start and if you can inspire one person I think you've ticked. I think too it's about having a little bit of success in the garden. So when you plant your first sugar snap peas and then you go out and you harvest them and you bring them in for dinner, that's like a light bulb. You can talk and talk and talk about the theory with some of these things, but when you walk five metres, harvest some dinner and walk back into the house, you go, oh wow. I wonder how far this is normally, and then you have it fresh in season at its peak, grown in your soil in the backyard, and you know all of the inputs that have gone in. And it would be the same, I imagine, with the forestry. When you're sourcing those products, it must be such a satisfying process. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And as a gardener myself as well, I find that that I get the same feeling that you're talking about, like when I learn from my garden and my diet is guided by the garden. It's very, very similar to have my work guided by the flowers that have been growing here. And it's a very wholesome way to live. It is, it is. It's fantastic. I'm a bit jealous actually. Um, just going back to supply, I know that you forage, tell us about your foraging. You forage a little bit. Yeah, it's great. Um, foraging is an interesting part of floristry. It's very important. actually I think as well. Choosing a spot is always... What is foraging? Yeah maybe... Yeah so it's it's foraging is finding material in out the outside area you know so I'm not buying it I'm I'm foraging it from bushlands. And how do you know it's a safe area that it's okay for you to procure those materials? Yeah, so obviously making sure it's not private property, making sure it's no national parks, and so usually just for example, I was driving back from Hobart and along the highway the the teasels they're like a very tall thistle type plant, so they jump the fences and they're a total weed, but when they dry out they have a really interesting form. So I can use them in my work. So they grow all the way along the fences of these farmlands on between the road and the fence. Yes. That's just, that's so fine. I mean, no one- You just pull over and you can just grab a few on that other side of the fence. Yeah, well, yeah, it's outside the fence. And I also know it's a total pest to the farmers. So I don't think anyone's going to miss them. Yeah. But to me, it's a really great resource. So some of these weeds, sorry, but some of these weeds, I would think it's better to pick them and use them than have their seeds blow in the wind and then they're duplicating themselves, I would think. Like, yeah. Yeah, they're just going to be slashed anyway. Yeah. Um, so yeah, absolutely. They're, it helps. Maybe it helps. I mean, it's not like I'm taking truckloads of them and they sometimes use truckloads, but it's an informed decision. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think foraging, foraging is great. Like I'd love to do more of it. Um, you often see. There's like a map of foraging food map in Canberra. Oh, yeah. For like food that just grows in the... You would love it. Little nibbler. I know. You'd be nibbling here and nibbling there. Just like predominantly apples that have just self seeded. Obviously, I don't know how they get there. Is it just people throwing their butts out the window? Like the butts? Apple butts. Not cigarette butts or their butts. You mean cocks? Of course. An apple bud, a pod of an apple. I'm sure that's a thing. Is there anything that people could be foraging for at the moment? Oh, well, you guys would have quite a different, quite a different thing going on up there. But what I'm always looking for, always look for grasses when they're dry. So same again, agriculture. So they grow a lot of like grass type grain crops. Yes. And they always jump the fence. That's right. When the grasses dry out, it's a bit before they slash them, it's a really good time to just pull over and get lots of dried grasses, which are great for your. for your flower arrangements at home. And look, 10 times better than, you know, some plastic Oh, stop. knockoff. No, you can't. That you can pick up. I've actually got some in the bathroom that you can check. I've got some honesty there that I grew and dried. And then I just exactly what you said, I went for a walk and I grabbed some seed heads and just stuck them in. I saw in your Instagram, you have the most magnificent honesty installation. And what was interesting to me about that is you have this approach of art, floristry and it is a work of art. So can you talk to us about that? Yeah sure. So it's hanging up in the shop window at the moment. So Lunaria or honesty. The inner seed casing creates a very tissue papery, shimmery oval. So I It's a biennial. So I planted the seeds in 2019 and the plants grew for two years until they flowered and then they set seed and then you wait for the seed to for it to dry out and then I pulled the whole plants out. How special. And then it's almost like three layers isn't it? So you've got the little seed pod, you peel one side and the other side the little seeds drop out and then it's like this mother of pearl. But yours Perfect. Mine have got all these little blemishes from the seeds. You peeled them? Yeah, how did you get them so perfect? I know the blemishes you're talking about. I think that that might be water damage. I did just leave them in the garden until they dried out. Yeah, it probably is moldy-ness. I think it's something to do with moisture, I believe. I think it's good to try and harvest them and then, like, once they've set the seed, harvest them before they get dewy like that and dry them out inside before you peel the outer casings off. And did you find it quite therapeutic sitting there peeling your honesty pods? It took eight hours. Wow. That's awesome. Wow. But yeah. Actually, it took two years really to get to that point, didn't it? Yeah, two years and eight hours. Amazing. Yeah, but it is very therapeutic. I love repetitive motion like that. It's kind of like planting lots of seeds, you know, in your little hot house or something like that. Yeah. easy and mind numbing, but very sweet job. And I think it'll definitely warrant a photograph. Oh, definitely. And there's something about the simple, it's almost like to me, like this floating cloud, but this, it's so simple, but so effective. I love it, I love it, love it, love it. Yeah, they're great. I grew up, my mum had them at home, and I never really knew what they were, until I saw you doing your project. And then I was like, oh! That's what my mom had. Never knew what it was. So yeah, I don't even know whether she grew them or not, I'll have to ask. Just going back, you've recently just, you were down in Hobart doing an installation. I had a- Or you had a project. Tell us about that. That looked exciting. Was that on stage? On a stage? Oh no, that was in Launceston. Oh, that was in Launceston. Yeah, so that was Junction Arts Festival, which is a great arts festival that happens here in the middle of Launceston. It happens in a park that's one block away from the shop. So it was a great opportunity for being part of the arts scene here. And I did the stage design for it. The festival identity was based around an artwork. created by a local artist and it was very Indigenous focus. Beautiful. So I decided that the festival identity was leaning towards a Native kind of theme. Obviously they hired me because they want botanical. Yeah, of course. So I decided to create a Native bush wall behind where the bands played on the stage. of a bush scene. And then I had three 1.5 meter long installations hanging from the ceiling of the marquee. And was that all, did you use all dried materials? No, there was a lot of fresh actually I teed up with two different farms up here and they came and delivered lots of fresh material for me when I was installing. Um, there was some dried things as well, though. Yeah. I can't wait to see it. Yeah. It looked, it looked very exciting. It was great. Yeah, it was really, it was great. Um, there was a lot of, of pollen and that kind of, uh, you were getting around. It was quite funny. I was really worried that someone was going to have their hay fever set off when they were playing the bass or something, but it was all worked out. I mean, it was, it was open air. Was it open air? Oh yeah, the sides of the marquee were open, but it's quite closed once you get closer to where the stage is and then you're closed in by all of the speakers and everything. But did that add a smell element? Oh absolutely. Yeah floral, that would be amazing. Yeah people were walking in. Did you get any wattle fragrance in there? I don't think I could handle the wattle fragrance after all the work I've been doing recently. Tell us about the wattle in Tassie, in Tassie at the moment, in Launceston. Like is it really prominent as like it is here at the nation's capital? Like it's it's amazing here. Yeah well the wattle, oh yeah it's just all through our bushlands. So the hills are you know quite yellow and it's coming to an end at the moment but there's a... certain variety, very tassel-y variety that's on now. Right. But all of the classic, like really fluffy wattle that's just finished. Yeah. Yeah, so it's coming to the end at the moment. Yeah, right, yeah. On to the next thing. Hmm. Bernadette has a question to ask you about your, your one of your tattoos. I found Abigail has a few tattoos. Look Abigail, I've got a bit of ink myself. What have I got? One word, two word, three words and some birds, words and birds. But I noticed that you've got, is it an Alpine strawberry, a wild strawberry? Yes, I have a wild, well, it's actually a stem of wild strawberries on my forearm. Forget Me Not on my ankle. So the two tattoos that I've chosen for my body are kind of glorified weeds. But I chose them. I did the Forget Me Not first and then I did the Wild Strawberries after visiting Finland. I did a residency in Finland for a month. and it was during summer and they have woodlands that have like the wild strawberries and wild blueberries as carpets through the woodland. And I really related that, I already had the Forget Me Not tattoo and I really related that to the way that Forget Me Not grow in Hobart through the rivulet which is like a carpet of blue. A lot of people don't like plants like that. that really spread themselves. But I find them quite beautiful in their resilience and their willingness to survive in spaces that other plants really don't want to. So you're thinking like really, really rocky conditions are really wet or harsh. It's been harsh in cracks of concrete. And I just realized that concept of not being so over complicated and just getting on with it and doing a really good job. Yeah, I love that meaning behind them. That's beautiful. I would be quite tempted to get a calendula tattoo. It's similar. For that reason. Yeah, it's a similar. Because it's a survivor and, yeah. Resilient, very resilient, as Radha said. It's got lots of uses, lots of applications, lots of, lends itself to lots of different things. And I suppose in this world, you kind of have to, you have to diversify, don't you? You know, you kind of have to. I mean, if you don't, if you're worried about forget-me-nots taking, I mean, yeah, a lot of people do worry about them being a weed. I've got some on the kitchen bench started right now just to, I use them as a reminder of someone that's passed, you can certainly put them in a container if you're worried about them spreading. And then, you know, they'll volunteer and self-seed themselves and come back every year. Especially, you know, if you lose someone at the time of year when they flower, then every year when they come up and flower, it's that beautiful reminder, that beautiful little hello from them. So yeah, I think they're very sweet too. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I've, as I've gone through the journey of gardening, You really find all those plants that they, they're just so fussy. They're like, Oh, it's too, my feet, they're too wet and they die. Or they're like, Oh, it's too windy and exposed here. Really unhappy. Um, and I just think like, God, they're just so, just get on with it. You get me nuts and the wild, wild berries and you're like, Oh, they just. do such a good job at just not worrying about it. How good are those plants in the right place, that just thrive when you do nothing? And especially ones like, because I do a lot of annuals, but isn't it nice to have something that then volunteers itself again the next year without any input from you? What a, how refreshing. Lovely, Gail. Do you have a first gardening memory? What's your first gardening memory? Yeah, I was thinking about this question. It's very hard for me to. tell because I've been in gardens my entire life so it's hard to tell which would be the first but um the first one that popped into my head which is quite hilarious uh my mom used to we used to have like this uh like a hills hoist and some lawn and she used to send me out with a butter knife to cut weeds out of the lawn five cents per weed yeah So I would sit out there and cut the weeds out and you know. How Australian is that? Out at the Hills Hoist clothesline with a butter knife. And so you would go out and you would harvest these weeds. Yeah, it's a pocket money. So we used to have the same deal. Five cents a weed. I don't know if you ever cottoned onto this, but if you ripped them in half, oh, you got 10 cents. And you know what else I cottoned onto? But if I was like, Mom, I got 57 weeds, she never counted them. So I would be like five in there. I've got like 100 weeds here, mom. Sucka! And what about you said, so you said that you love gardening as well. What one of the segments that we do every week on our show is what's happening in your garden at the moment. Look, exciting time of the year, everything's happening. What's happening in spring. But what in particular is exciting you in the garden at the moment? Oh yeah, well I'm a bit sad about my garden at the moment because I'm... just going to be moving soon and I'm in a rental, which is a really interesting thing. I think the idea, because when you feel like your home is transient, so you don't feel like you can, you can garden. So I do battle against that. And I've got lots of things in pots. Yes, can be moved. And there are a couple of daffodils that are still coming. So the later varieties, one of them looks like an egg, which I love. and the broad beans are looking really good, which is yum. Let's start like a broad like a broad bean paste on a bit of Nice, crusty sour dough. Like a brush, it's got like a broad bean bruschetta. Oh, like a pesto type thing. Yeah, right. Delish. Beautiful. It's interesting, actually, a lot of people rent. I think you've made a you've hit on something there because it shouldn't stop you from gardening because you can garden in pots and move things, can't you? That's where my journey started. That's right. Yes. Yeah, it's definitely a dialogue that I bring up a lot with my peers because I mean, that generation where not many people own homes it's definitely, I don't know many people who bother creating gardens in their rentals. So yeah, I put that up on my Instagram a bit about just giving tips and things about like the types of vessels that you can use because it's not just pots, but also I grow in polystyrene boxes. And I also went and got a secondhand bath, just a little one from the shop. Beautiful. It's like throwing lots of silver beads and rockets in there. Um, and they all work really well, you know, I think, uh, we definitely probably overcomplicate the concept of needing, you know, uh, planter boxes and ceramic pots and all of this, but you can literally. grow lettuce in rubbish. Yeah. I always find the local tip is fantastic. So we've got a place here called the Green Shed and I go there a lot and haven't been lately actually. I need to take a trip. They upcycle throw away objects basically. Yeah, like just anything that you can, you know, has an area that you can put soil in. I'm like, I'm up for it. I'll take it. I'll take it. An old bedpan, put it in the back of the truck. Yeah, like, oh, I love bedpans. I love bedpans. Yeah. Yeah, like bulbs coming out of a bedpan or commode. Do you ever know? Do you know what a commode is? I don't know what a commode is. My Nana and Grandad had commodes as they got older. beside their beds. I suppose nowadays in Australia, you never really see. Can't believe I'm talking about a commode. They're plastic and it's a toilet basically, beside your bed. A portal loop. Bernadette's face just changed there. But over at home, there were beautiful wooden chairs and they had tapestries on the lids, like they were spectacular. And obviously they. you know, came out of fashion or weren't deemed hygienic or whatever. And so people started like using them in their gardens and planting in them. And oh, yeah. My first container garden in Melbourne. I one of the things I miss about having a container garden now that I do have, you know, our own home. is when I had the container garden, you had to keep up to the water a bit more regular. Obviously, they're a lot more exposed than just, you know, being in the ground. But taking that time to sit in hand water, I would really observe and see what was happening. I was really in tune, you know, with, you know, any disease or pruning or things like that. So it can be nice as well. It can pull you back, you know, sometimes even when you get that great setup with all the automatic irrigation and everything like that, sometimes that means that you remove yourself and certainly observation I think is one of the best tools a gardener has in terms of keeping on top of things. Yeah definitely I think it also when you have restricted space you really think about what it is you actually want to grow and need to grow because when you have a lot of space in the garden you have this tendency to probably go and see all the cool seeds and you're like oh I want to grow everything all of these obscure different varieties but then maybe you don't actually eat. Yeah. Yeah. So when I find that when I'm only gardening in containers, I really narrow it in on the things that I actually eat. You want to eat. Yeah. Yeah. just makes it more, almost more useful as well. And the most, you know, I always say to people, if you're looking at starting to garden, where I would start is lettuce and herbs, because A, you usually buy them, they're in pretty subpar condition, you get them home, you only wanna use a little bit of it, then they go moldy or get ruined, and then you throw them out. It's the perfect thing to have next to the kitchen, snip off a few chives, snip off some lettuce leaves. And they're still growing, they're not gonna wilt away, they're gonna be there, we need them next. full sun. That's right. So they're great. You know, and if you were going to start summer, that's perfect for a container garden. Lattice and herbs, they are great. Rocket as well. And rocket. Everyone's just growing rocket in containers. Absolutely. And you know what? Even if you don't eat a lot of it or you're just going to grow it to give it to your family or you know someone in the family, they... They go into a beautiful flower. Their flower is amazing. But it tastes, rocket to me is like tomatoes. Homegrown rocket tastes a trillion times better than what you're used to getting at the supermarket. That's right. And I know we did talk about, because we had gone to that seed saver event recently, and they had talked about when something goes to flower, it goes to seed, it then can start to taste bitter. I've never noticed that with any of my lettuce. I must be more observant. Brassicas, happens a lot with brassicas. Is it brassicas? Yeah, right. So I usually eat my coleslaw. rabbi leaves, but they've gone to seed and I went to try one for a stir fry the other night and it was like soap, it was charitable so maybe it's just... Awesome. So Abigail, tell us your flowers in the store, do you post them within Australia? If someone went online and liked what they saw, would you post within Australia? Oh the artworks maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us a little bit more about that just in case, because we've got loads of international listeners. At least five. Yeah, look, I mean, my business is very new, hey? So I, I'm still trying to work out how to navigate the people in the street. Um, so I haven't really ventured into the whole like shipping thing yet. I've definitely thought about it and I feel that if someone really wanted something, I would definitely work on it and ship it to them. You would collaborate with them. It would be nice to, I suppose, have a two-way conversation, see what they wanted and if it was for them, you ticked all their boxes. Well, that could work, I suppose. Or even, what do you call it, a commission a piece. If you're speaking to them and they're, if you're going to be, I don't know, would you consider doing something bespoke like that? Definitely. I can see myself doing that kind of setup over having just like stuff on a website that you can purchase. Yeah. is I think, especially when you're buying work like that, it's nice to imagine it with the artist and talk about the space you have, and what colours you like, and even what type of flowers you like as well. And what a beautiful story to tell people when they see it in your home, to say, you know, collaborated with this artist, and this means this, and this came from this. I loved what you said earlier about weddings, because I think the... most common time for someone to approach a florist is probably when they're getting married, maybe when someone passes or when they've um need to apologize to their wife. But even I was planning a wedding and it fell through due to COVID and in the end I was talking to the florist that I was using she was in Cooma which is regional New South Wales and I said to her look we're not doing the whole wedding anymore my husband and I are just going to a little local We're not even sure on what the date is. And she said, well, why don't I do a dried flower arrangement for you? And you know what? It is one of the best changes that happened to me, because I've still got that dried flower arrangement upstairs. As pristine is the day that I got it, and I treasure it, and it's better than anything I could have imagined. So would you love to be starting more of that conversation with people to consider seasonal or dried arrangements at their weddings? Yeah, I have actually already done quite a few weddings that they wanted dried bouquets just like that. And they loved it. And I often get like an email multiple months later and they say it's on their kitchen table still looking amazing, just like you've mentioned. Would you consider like if someone came to you and said I'm getting married, how what would you like to encourage them to consider? Obviously like seasonal like fresh versus dried. Instead of saying I want 80,000 white roses. versus dried, I feel like that's a personal, some people like that aesthetic more. Maybe if they were getting married in winter, the discussion of dried might be more on the table to keep it sustainable. Yeah. Yeah. If sustainability is something that's important to them, which often people who hire me as a florist do it because... they know that I'm supporting local flowers and that that's important to them. Yeah, they have searched for you so they have found you basically. Yeah, and I always say that the way that I work is that you know they can give me mood boards and tell me what flowers they love but and the colour scheme is really important. But when it comes to it, I am responding to the flowers that are available that week. So I can't always tell you exactly what's going to be in your... in your arrangements, but I know the vibe that you're going for. But you know what? What a wonderful surprise. I know. Instead of knowing this is exactly what I'm going to, and look, I know I bring him up all the time, but Monte Don, for his son's wedding, actually grew all these white sweet peas. Yes. And he did, in the series, he showed how he got them to be perfect stems and time them and everything. But can you imagine a wedding where you walk in and you get hit with the fragrance? hundreds of sweet pays and because that the smell smell kind of creates that memory for you when you smell that sweet pee as time goes on. And it'll bring you back to that time. So I didn't for my wedding. I didn't really want flowers for my wedding, which sounds really sad, but it wasn't. I was like I was in Australia. I organized a wedding in Ireland and I thought when I go there, when I get home about two weeks beforehand, I'm just going to buy some plants or some orchids or something. And I'll just buy in bulk, probably from a horrific big multinational store. But at least people can walk away with them. They can just bring them home. But it's a living. Oh, they take them with them. It's a living. So I had this thought in my head and it wasn't until I went to talk to her about doing a cheese board and in her cafe, she had these amazing flowers. And I just happened to say to her, like your flowers are amazing, have you ever thought of doing wedding flowers? Because I just want a few little pots to put on my tables. And you know, I've done one wedding before. And I went, oh, fantastic. She goes, do you want me to do you up a quote? And I went, absolutely. So away she went, she sent me through the quote and I thought, perfect, that looks good. And she literally foraged. So she went, so I had blackberries. There was thistles that possibly could have been thesils. I thought you were saying that. It was a fancy way of saying thistles, but it's obviously a thesils. Is it a different? It's not a thistle. It's a thesil. It's like a different one. Yeah, the thistle is very, very spicy. Yeah, yeah. That purple hairdo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, not the same. What's a thesal? Well, a thesal is obviously a very refined version of a thesal, like a very prettier... Is it like Mrs. Bucket and Mrs. Bouquet? Maybe. They're from the same, same but different. Anyway, so my aunt, my auntie Terry, had been collecting jam jars forever to make jam, which she never got to make jam. And she went, oh, I've got loads of jam jars. So I just gave them to... the lady that was doing my flowers and she went and she foraged and then my bouquet was just hydrangeas from my dad's garden. Oh lovely. So it was just and I just picked loads like the day before my wedding and left her in buckets of hydrangeas and they're all blue. They were spectacular. So yeah. It was something blue. That was my something blue actually, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it was. And it meant so much more that I knew where the flowers came from and Jenny done like a spectacular job. And it was, and everyone left the wedding with a jam jar, which was great. But I'm a bit sad that they weren't dried. Like I actually think now. having that memory will be beautiful. Maybe you could do a renewal of vows and consider some dried flowers. I love that. That would be great. Just Abigail, tell us a little bit about your workshops. So you do workshops in your store. Are they available online at all? Tell us a little bit about your workshops. I'm not. running them online. Yeah. Unfortunately. That's okay. Yeah. We could do a girly weekend to Launceston. That'd be awesome. Lock me in. Where there are flower arranging workshops that I'm running. So just running through the basics of how to arrange a bouquet and how to arrange a table arrangement. Um, and also while people are here, I love just talking about everything that we've talked about. So sustainability of flowers, where they've come from, seasonality. And also because I have lots of experience in the garden, I always ask for if anyone has any questions about how to grow flowers as well. So what a great idea. Great thing to do with the girls. It will be. Well, you you also have done flower crown workshops, haven't you? You've done. Oh, yeah. Which I think is beautiful for for children. Oh, I just thought we could. Oh, for a crown around town like the Queen's. We girls. I thought you meant Charlotte and Amy. I meant the girls. The flower crown workshops are very popular for hen parties. Yes. And birthdays with the girls. Absolutely. I am also in the process of workshopping myself how to do a flower crown workshop for children because I don't have children. So I've been doing lots of research through. people who do have children. Yeah, you're beautiful. We were actually at Florriard today, which as you may know is the biggest celebration of spring. It's a flower show that we have here in Canberra, mainly tulips and bulbs and those sort of things. But there was a little sprouts. marquee and they just had air clay with the kids squished into a circular disc and then there were all these beautiful dried flowers and ferns and they would cup it into a bowl shape, put some of the dried flowers and paint it with a little bit of glue to dry. It was beautiful. Yeah it was very, it was so basic and Ava loved it because she got to work with clay, even Callan. I didn't let of herself. She'll get there. Did you compare yours to mine? Because I left, well I was taking a photograph this morning Abigail, I was taking a photograph this morning and out of nowhere popped Bernadette. It was like, we um, because we had, we kind of said we might go to Floriad but then we didn't have, we didn't converse about it at all and then we were like oh fancy meeting you here. I was pretty stressed that I ruined that photograph for you because then the firemen were like okay move on and I was like oh maybe let them take another one. Sorry. They didn't realise that we knew each other. And then this lady came running out of nowhere and said, are you from Bernadette from Seedy Chats? I was gonna say for a beginner that's considering growing some flowers at home to maybe start making their own arrangements, is there anything easy they could start at the moment? Yeah. I was just thinking actually, if I would wanna recommend something to anyone. So everyone should definitely have a go at just growing some leafy greens if they haven't grown much before. with your vegetables are so important. As we've talked about calendulars. That's right. Yeah, they're just big bee attractors. And it's so important to have that symbiotic relationship in your garden. That's right. And then actually something that I find a lot in floristry and in gardening is that people are afraid to cut the flowers from their plants. And I really would love to debunk that because a lot of the time, cutting the flowers from plants actually just encourages them to make more. Because what they're doing is just a, it's a very basic cycle of creating the flower, setting the seed and then often in the way of annuals that the plant will then die. That's their life cycle. So if you just cut the flower then it just goes oh I'll just make another one because all it wants to do is make the seed. So people get quite torn up about You know, I don't want to like. I do it all the time. I could, yeah, yeah, it's great. I don't cut. Oh, you don't cut? Because I've started from seed, I've waited for this. Is it Dahlia or Dahlia? Dahlia, I say Dahlia, but. My Dahlia's, I'm the worst for it. And the other thing I'm trying to maybe do, I don't know if you know much about dahlias this year, is you're meant to pinch them as well. Are you to encourage them? Can you talk us through that? Because anything where you're cutting the plant, you're always a bit afraid of, but is it something that we should be afraid of? What's the pinching? How do you pinch a dahlias? What's the pinching? How do you pinch a dahlias? What's the pinching? How do you pinch a dahlias? What's the pinching? How do you pinch a dahlias? What's the pinching? How do you pinch a dahlias? What's the pinching? How do you pinch a dahlias? What's the pinching? How do you pinch a dahlias Yeah, so it's early in the stage. It's just that, so, you know, it comes up with a single shoot. What else is something else that you pinch? Like tomatoes, you know, you're- Oh, like a detail, you prune them. Like the kind of take away that, I do it a lot with basil as well. Yes, basil is a great one for pinching out. Oh, so yeah, I never knew you were meant to do that. Pinching out basically means pruning. Ah. Yeah, and it just encourages the plant to actually make multiple branches rather than just the one. Right, now I understand. flowers. But I never really had that concept with flowers. So something I didn't do it with at the beginning and now I do is zinnias and you I would sort of get this one lanky stem and sort of single flower and then you leave it there but if you sort of wait I think they say until you get sort of up to the third set of leaves cut it. cut its little head off and then it'll grow bushier and wider and be more prolific. Wow. And another one is the paper daisy. Oh, oh, oh, Avril Borders won today. I just brought one over for Bernadette's little girl, well, for Charlotte. Because they're awesome to feel for kids, right? I guess after taking a art thing earlier, I'll let her have the daisy. Let her have the daisy, yeah. So the paper daisies as well. Yeah, you pinch those as well and it encourages lots more branchy growth and that's more flowers. And you can really take them into a really dense bush. I'm doing that with all my daisies this year. I'm very excited about this. I'm going off pinching. When I came to Australia first, I was a backpacker and I worked on a lot of tomato farms on the east coast of Australia. And that was my job was detailing. We called it detailing tomatoes, which... So pruning out the little suckers. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So I used to do that very well. I had a few harvesting jobs when I backpacked. But yeah, that was one of them. It's awesome. Cool, I'm very excited about doing that with flowers though. Yeah, you know what? I might even, I might document one on our Instagram and show people the difference it makes. Yeah, awesome. If I can, I'll do one and leave one and show people the difference. Yeah, that'd be awesome. That's a nice little experiment. We love doing experiments, don't we? Yeah. Well, thank you so, so much for joining us. I've learned heaps and also, like you say, about that community, you've really inspired me with a lot of things today. So thank you so much for your time. I think it's fantastic. Well done on your concept store. It's beautiful. can't wait to get down there to see it. Yes, can't wait to have you here. Thank you so much for having me today. I'll see you for some mimosas and flower arranging soon. That's right. Let's face it, I'll just have the champagne, hold the orange juice, thanks. We're gonna hit the Launceston Tan. Hit the Tan. We'll go and do a flower crown workshop. That'd be awesome. Yeah. Sounds good. Okay, that's great. Thanks, Wildly Abigail. Slán le. Slán le. It means goodbye in Irish. Okay. Gourf maugath if you want to be really fancy for any way. That means thank you.