Hello there! We are Nathalie & Cameron (& Oakley) – a family-run small scale flower farm in Tuatapere, Western Southland.
Cameron was born and bred here whilst Nathalie (me) grew up in the Netherlands, settling in New Zealand in 2016. We started our flower farm in 2022 after I (Nat) borrowed a book from a friend. The book was called Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden. After reading the book I knew I wanted to try this! Originally I was thinking 7m x 18m but Cameron suggested we use the whole top patch of our paddock instead. That was when the fun began ….
First we hired a little digger to scrap off the grass, then we borrowed a tractor with a rotary hoe from the neighbour across the road (thanks Tom!) Unfortunately that was when all the rocks came to the surface too! We spend weeks and weeks on our hands and knees picking up those boulders by hand …. can you guess where this is going? In the meantime all our seedlings were getting root-bound, we were getting behind in when things should be going in the ground and we were wishing we had started a little earlier! The rock picking continues as we extend our garden beds!
Hence our name. Blooming Boulders.
We ended up having a fantastic first season of blooming flowers. We attended Farmer’s Markets in Invercargill and Queenstown, sold bunches of flowers in our roadside stall to our very supportive local community and branched into floral arrangements for Weddings, Funerals and Special Occasions.
Over winter we’ve worked hard, picked up some more rocks and established a perennial block and a spring block. We started earlier with the addition of Tulips, Ranunculus and Daffodils. An opportunity has arisen for us to take on another flower grower’s peony block. We have also purchased two commercial tunnel houses to help extend our growing session on the Autumn side – that’s a work in progress!
This growing season we’re introducing Cut-Flower Subscriptions. It’s a door to door delivery service that you can find more about here. Due to popular demand we are trialling new selling locations beyond our roadside stall – you can get fresh cut-flowers from Orepuki Beach Cafe and Brunel Peaks Cafe & Bar in Blackmount as well as Boundary Creek Gallery in Tuatapere.
Our Commitment to the Environment
We are passionate and committed to being as environmentally friendly and sustainable as we possibly can. We use recycled newsprint for our flower bunches and it’s home-compostable too! Our complimentary cut-flower food is packaged in recyclable paper.
We limit the use of sprays and chemicals as much as we can. Our favourite natural insecticide is Neem Oil for helping us keep our flowers in the best possible condition they can be.
