My Flower Addiction

You may have gathered in many of my emails, blog posts, instagram posts, etc, that I really love flowers. But it's not just love, this is an addiction.

I don't know where this addiction came from. I know that millions of people around the world do love having flowers in their homes, for events, and appreciate them when they see them in shops, or in people's gardens. So I'm not unusual there.

I've always appreciated flowers. When I was a kid, I used to pick them in Mum and Dad's garden and have them in the house. As an adult, I'd sometimes "do the flowers" at my friend's birthdays or parties. Again, not unusual.

Then about 15 years ago, I decided I wanted to embark on a different career path from the one I was on. I had been thinking of doing something more creative - landscaping, crafts, and decided to do a floristry course.

And that's where I pinpoint the beginning of my addiction. This is when I dove in head first into the world of flowers, and there was no going back.

I'd never looked so closely at each and every flower, each different type of flower, each different stem. Each little bloom had it's own personality and quirks. I realised how special and amazing nature can be. The structure of a firewheel flower, or bird of paradise, the way the shades of a rose change throughout the season, the perfect little faces of cosmos - each one entirely different from the other. The minute beauty of a little cecile brunner rose. I was awestruck then, and I still am.

The world of flowers fills my life. I have been working with flowers for 15 years now, and I feel like I am still only scratching the surface of what I can learn about them, and what we can do with them. Not just creations we can make with them, but their healing properties, scents we can make with them, pictures we can draw of them, photos we can take of them.

Addictions can get a pretty bad wrap, and for some, rightly so, but I see this as a healthy addiction. (except perhaps the hours I spend scrolling instagram looking at them)..

Last month, I spoke  in Narrabri at an International Women's Day event. I was asked how I got through to the other side of various difficult periods I’ve had since having my business.

I put it down to the fact that I just really love flowers, and I want to continue to work with them for as long as I can, so I just had to make it work.

It is so much easier to go to work each day, and back up when things might be a bit harder, when you really, really, love what you do.

Don't get me wrong, not everything about working as a florist is fun and beautiful - there are the early starts (although I quite like those), managing a business and all that comes with that, cleaning up after ourselves (floristry is extremely messy work), driving through city traffic all day doing deliveries. But at the end of the day, doing all these things allow us to create beautiful things, that not only satisfy our addiction, but make people extremely happy. (That's another addiction we'll talk about some other time).

Sometimes when I'm shattered after a busy week, or stressed about with my business, or something separate from work, I'll start putting something together, and I'm entirely engrossed in what I'm doing, and completely forget about whatever it was that was bothering me. How lucky am I.