APRIL NOTES

This letter comes a little late, notes from April, penned in early May.

The transition into our new home has been such a special time for our family.. If you've been following along on Instagram you'll know that we sold our home in January then have been living with my parents until just a couple of weeks ago.

This new property, we hope, will be our forever home, the home our children will remember when they look back on their childhood.

IN THE GARDEN

When we arrived, there were no gardens in sight, not even a clear house yard boundary, so in the first week of living here my husband built us a fenced area, and I began tilling beds for our spring flowers.

Once, I wished flowers lasted forever, but now I am glad they are seasonal...many of the growing areas I am using for this coming season will later be turned back into lawn, as we develop a larger, potager-style cottage flower and vege garden.

If you would like to follow along, I have begun a new series on Instagram showing each stage of beginning our cut flower gardens from the ground up.

A LOVE LETTER TO CHRYSANTHEMUMS

This year, I fell more in love with chrysanthemums... As we left our old home, I had no blooms to share for Mother's Day, but a local grower kindly shared a bucketful of theirs with me which you all found at Dusty Daisy. We also shared a few of our handburned spoons with Mikayla from Brookevalley Flowerson Mother's Day weekend and they were well loved.

HOW I PROPOGATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS

Each year I save the bottoms of the stems I use in bunches to begin new plants for next season.
Keeping a few leaves on the top, I strip the bottom two inches from a 3 inch piece of stem.
This I dip in a rooting mix of honey and cinnamon and poke into a pot full of damp seed raising mix.
Watered regularly, I plant them out near the end of the year...ready to bloom next May.

Planning our new gardens, I am making lots of space for the cuttings I took from this year's stems as well as a few new varieties, and other perennials.

I do wonder though, where I will be able to share our flowers with you locally come spring ... I would love to keep them available in Wondai however I keep meeting closed doors.

Plans are slowly taking shape for a roadside Farmstand again, but what do you think? Do you prefer coming for a slow drive to gather our bunches, or prefer the convenience of in town?

Amongst all the busyness of shifting, I have begun undertaking a few small projects with brands and companies that I love. Here's a few snapshots of recent work. And if you would like to work together to capture some beautiful slow imagery for your business, please be in touch!

Until next time, dear friend, thankyou ever so much for being here.

Katie