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Ep. 85: Growing & Breeding Dahlias at Scale: Inside Florelie Flower Farm in Australia
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In this episode of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast, we’re heading south to Australia to visit Florelie, a small-scale but highly productive specialty cut flower farm near Ballarat, Victoria.
Jennifer is joined by flower farmer and dahlia breeder Lorelie Merton, who shares how a gifted bunch of homegrown peonies sparked a journey that led her from speech pathology to full-time flower farming. Today, Florelie grows flowers on just 2.5 acres of a 20-acre property, with 20,000 dahlias, a robust dahlia breeding program, and a thriving tuber business serving Australian gardeners and florists.
In this conversation, Lorelie opens up about breeding dahlias specifically for cut flower performance, scaling thoughtfully, rotating crops to protect soil health, and building a true family farm alongside her husband Ethan and their three children. She also shares behind-the-scenes insight into dahlia breeding timelines, seedling selection, tuber sales, and why dahlias are such a unique crop for agritourism and education.
Whether you’re a backyard gardener, aspiring flower farmer, or deeply obsessed with dahlias, this episode is packed with practical insight and honest perspective.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- How Florelie grew from a hobby into a full-time flower farm
- Why dahlias became the farm’s primary crop
- What it takes to manage and evaluate thousands of dahlia seedlings
- How Lorelie breeds dahlias specifically for cut flower use
- How crop rotation and paddock rest protect long-term soil health
- The role Lorelie’s husband Ethan plays as farm manager and agronomist
- How Florelie offers workshops, tuber sales, and afternoon tea events in the dahlia fields
***Just a quick note about today's episode: We had a bit of connection lag while recording from across the world, so there are just a few spots where we ended up talking at the same time as we couldn't hear one another. It’s minor, but I wanted to mention it in case you notice in this episode. The conversation is still great and I know you're going to love hearing from Lorelie!
Connect with Lorelie & Florelie
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/florelieseasonalflowers/
- Website: https://florelie.com.au
Sign up for our podcast newsletter: https://bit.ly/thefloweringfarmhousenewsletter
Join Us At The Profitable Dahlia Summit
The first-ever virtual summit focused exclusively on growing dahlias for profit is here!
Join us March 3–4, 2026 to learn from experienced dahlia growers who are selling bouquets, tubers, CSA shares, event tickets, and more — and doing it profitably.
You’ll walk away with real strategies to turn your passion into income, even if you're just getting started.
Save your spot here: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.mykajabi.com/profitabledahiliasummit/
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Floralie with Lorelie Merton
00:02:03
Jennifer Gulizia
Today on the Backyard Bouquet podcast, we're heading south to Australia to visit a flower farm that feels both deeply intentional and beautifully grounded. I'm joined by Lorelie Merton of Florelie a small scale specialty cut flower farm Located near Ballarat in Victoria, Australia, florally sits on 20 acres with around two and a half acres of thoughtfully planted flowers. Dahlias are the heart of the farm, supported by other seasonal blooms, including peonies, ranunculus, bearded iris, and summer annuals, each grown with intention for florists, gardeners, and flower lovers alike.
00:02:47
Jennifer Gulizia
The farm is also home to a growing dahlia breeding program, offering Australian gardeners access to high-quality, locally bred dahlia tubers.
Laura Lee's Journey to Flower Farming
00:02:57
Jennifer Gulizia
Loralie never imagined that she would become a flower farmer. A gifted bunch of homegrown peonies sparked the initial dream back in 2015.
00:03:06
Jennifer Gulizia
And what began as a side passion grew alongside her career as a speech pathologist. In 2021, she made the leap into flower farming full time. Behind the scenes, Flora Lee is very much a family effort. Loralie Lee's husband, Ethan, serves as the farm manager overseeing planning, soil and groundwork, crop rotation, irrigation, and the daily tasks that keep the farm running. Together, the two of them are raising three children while building a farm rooted in curiosity, experimentation, and care.
00:03:39
Jennifer Gulizia
In today's conversation, we'll talk about following unexpected paths, breeding dahlias, balancing family life with farm life, and what it really looks like to grow something meaningful season by season.
00:03:52
Jennifer Gulizia
Laura Lee, welcome to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today.
00:03:58
Lorelie Merton
Thanks for having me, Jen.
00:04:01
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, it's such an honor. It's so fun to get to finally meet you across across the Pacific Ocean. And I know this is a very busy time of year for you. You're in harvest season now, is that correct?
00:04:14
Lorelie Merton
ah Usually we would be, but this year the plants are actually a bit slower. So I think we're still another two weeks off properly harvesting.
00:04:23
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. But kids went back to school today. Is that correct?
00:04:27
Lorelie Merton
Yes, that's right.
00:04:29
Jennifer Gulizia
ah So, so summer's over and transitioning into fall in Australia. Is that right?
00:04:36
Lorelie Merton
ah It's still summer here, but we've just finished the summer holidays.
00:04:41
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. Usually, well, I guess we go back to school before it's technically fall too. So for listeners who are getting to meet you for the first time, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and your farm?
Growth and Expansion of Floralea
00:04:56
Lorelie Merton
Absolutely. So yeah, my name is Laura Lee and I started growing cut flowers as a hobby. The first thing that I started doing when I grew flowers was I was actually selling them as edible flowers.
00:05:10
Lorelie Merton
So my first ah step into Dahlia growing was harvesting whole flower heads, um packaging them into styrofoam boxes and sending them to an edible flower farm.
00:05:11
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:05:22
Lorelie Merton
And then they would take the petals off and pun at those and then send them to some high-end restaurants. So that was that was the start of my flower growing journey.
00:05:33
Lorelie Merton
And then I was quite passionate about cut flowers right from the beginning and started sharing my journey on Instagram. And that's really where I connected with a lot of local florists and other flower enthusiasts and gardeners. And yeah, it really just grew from there.
00:05:52
Lorelie Merton
So Ethan and I have a farm in Bungaree, which is about 20 minutes out of Ballarat on the Melbourne side, which is a great location for florists traveling from Melbourne to come and pick up our flowers. Or we're also close enough to Ballarat that it's really convenient to deliver there. um Yeah, and the business has really grown from a hobby into a full-time job and Ethan also became full-time on the farm just last year. So now we're both working full-time on the farm.
00:06:24
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. Congratulations. And before we hit record, you were sharing with me that Ethan previously was an agronomist, which must be a huge asset to your farm.
00:06:34
Lorelie Merton
Absolutely. um We often say if if I was by myself, I would kill all of the flowers. I'm actually not really a green thumb. Um, Ethan is a plant person, uh, and always has been. Uh, so he grows the flowers and then I, um, can market and sell and harvest, um, and do more that side of the business.
00:06:57
Jennifer Gulizia
That sounds like a great partnership that you have going. So you started out by selling, did you say it was dahlia petals to the restaurants?
00:07:06
Lorelie Merton
That's right. Yes.
00:07:08
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow. It's funny. I know dahlias are edible. Here I think of other flowers as being more of the flowers that you grow for edible purposes, but I've never really thought of dahlia petals being something to sell to a restaurant. So that's really fascinating.
00:07:25
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so the edible flower farm that I partnered with, they grew a lot of the more traditional ones already. So they had, you know, your violas and some different kinds of like celosia and even some microgreens, those kind of things. And Ethan actually knew them through his work as an agronomist.
00:07:42
Lorelie Merton
And he had been talking about his wife and her interest in flowers. And they said, well, we'd be interested in trying dahlias, but we don't really want to grow them ourselves in the hothouse set up that they had.
00:07:55
Lorelie Merton
So that's why we partnered with them so they could try something new.
00:08:00
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. And now what does your farm look like today?
00:08:04
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so from that first year when we moved to the farm, we grew about 300 dahlias, probably 200 of those were seedlings and only 100 of them were tubers.
00:08:17
Lorelie Merton
So we started growing from seed quite early on in our growing journey. And then today, currently in our field, we have 20,000 dahlias. So it's about a two acre field just of dahlias.
00:08:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow. how
00:08:30
Lorelie Merton
um And then over time, we've also added some other things to our our lineup. So we grow cosmos and amaranth celosia zinnias this year we've put in some sunflowers just for a bit of a trial we also grow scabiosa achillea so that's kind of like our summer range of flowers and then we're also developing a paddock of peonies which isn't quite ready for harvest so we have four and a half thousand peonies planted um
00:09:04
Lorelie Merton
in know ah It's a one acre paddock, but we also want to put some more peonies in there because we can fit them. But that will be stage two of the peony paddock. um And we haven't started harvesting from that paddock yet. So we should be harvesting probably next spring, I think.
00:09:20
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. And so for your peonies, when did you first plant those?
00:09:27
Lorelie Merton
ah So peonies were actually, even before the edible flowers, I guess peonies were my first flower love or obsession um because I got gifted a bunch of homegrown peonies from a family friend for my birthday. And I'd never seen them in real life before. And they were just incredible.
00:09:47
Lorelie Merton
um And so I just started looking into them and found a peony farm locally and took Ethan and our two children we had back then to go and see that field. And i thought this was amazing. And I was like, maybe we could grow peonies in a paddock too.
00:10:06
Lorelie Merton
But anyone who's grown peonies knows that they are a very slow growing plant. um And they're also relatively expensive. In Australia, we don't have many sources for wholesale peony roots either, just because it's a smaller market.
00:10:23
Lorelie Merton
And so I have been propagating peonies Yeah, since probably 2015. So yeah, years.
Dahlia Breeding Program Insights
00:10:33
Lorelie Merton
um And so, yeah yeah.
00:10:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh my goodness.
00:10:36
Lorelie Merton
So when we moved to the farm, there's an old tennis court out the front of our house and we just had that covered in pots um and a dripper system to irrigate them.
00:10:46
Lorelie Merton
And so the four and a half thousand peonies that we just planted out two years ago, they were all in pots on the tennis court until that time.
00:10:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow, that's amazing. And when you say you were propagating them, were you taking divisions of the roots? Is that how you were propagating them?
00:11:04
Lorelie Merton
Yes, that's right. Yeah. So every couple of years, we'd tip the roots out of the pots and divide them and then repot them and just continue to look after them in pots.
00:11:07
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:11:16
Lorelie Merton
Because peonies also get something called replant syndrome. So they don't like growing where another peony has grown before. And so we knew if we put them in the ground,
00:11:25
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:11:26
Lorelie Merton
We wanted to leave them there because otherwise they would complain. So, and they don't like that root disturbance. So leaving them in a pot meant that there was there was less root disturbance and we could put fresh potting mix on them each time we divided them so that we didn't end up with any stunting.
00:11:45
Jennifer Gulizia
That's so good to know.
00:11:49
Jennifer Gulizia
we moved to a farm in the end of 2024, and I still have peonies living in crates.
00:11:56
Jennifer Gulizia
And I was feeling guilty for not having planted them in the ground. But hearing you say that they don't like to be replanted, it makes me feel better knowing that I at least have them somewhere where they're safe until they can go into their permanent home.
00:12:09
Jennifer Gulizia
So that's amazing that you were able to keep them in pots.
00:12:09
Lorelie Merton
Yes.
00:12:12
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, and the reality is they weren't super happy in pots. Like they never really thrived, but we just needed to keep them alive and growing so that we could propagate them until we were ready to put them in their forever home.
00:12:26
Jennifer Gulizia
Sure. Yeah, I've been just, mine are terribly unhappy, but they're still alive. So they will get planted this spring once they have some irrigation.
00:12:34
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:12:35
Jennifer Gulizia
And so you have your peonies.
00:12:35
Lorelie Merton
It's so important.
00:12:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Totally. So you have your peonies and then your dahlias are your main crop though. What made you go from growing peonies to deciding to try growing dahlias? And that was in 2015?
00:12:51
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so we moved to the farm in 2017. So um from 2015, when I started collecting peonies and growing them, I was just growing them in pots at the house we were renting in Ballarat.
00:13:05
Lorelie Merton
um And then I did... because I was like interested in cut flowers, I was doing a bit of research and, you know, I was mostly a stay at home mom doing a little bit of speech pathology on the side. And so every time I had to feed that baby, i was like, I'm going to read about flowers. And so I did a lot of research about flowers and came across Erin from Floret. And that was the first time I'd ever noticed anybody actually doing flower farming full time. hadn't really considered that it was a job before.
00:13:37
Lorelie Merton
um And so that kind of opened my eyes to that possibility and made me think about, oh, what other flowers could I grow? And then I became obsessed with cafe au lait dahlias and they weren't currently available in Australia.
00:13:54
Lorelie Merton
And then the Diggers Club, which is a gardening organization here in Australia, they imported them and so the very first time they released Cafe LA in Australia I bought myself four and I grew them in pots while we were renting our house um and then it kind of grew from there to then moving to the farm growing some trying them as edible flowers and that gave me a bit of an excuse to play around with some cut flowers as well
00:14:21
Jennifer Gulizia
So have you personally tried the Dahlia petals?
00:14:24
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, absolutely. I've eaten both Dahlia tubers as well. I don't know if you've eaten tubers. um So yeah, they, yeah, you should give it a go.
00:14:31
Jennifer Gulizia
I haven't. Okay.
00:14:35
Lorelie Merton
So Dahlia petals really are kind of like a chewy lettuce, ah but also different colours taste different, which is not necessarily something you'd expect.
00:14:42
Jennifer Gulizia
okay
00:14:47
Lorelie Merton
um So in my experience, Dahlia, Petals that are more yellow tend to have a slightly more peppery flavor, a bit more like rocket. And then the red ones are often sweeter.
00:15:01
Lorelie Merton
um So it's not something I eat often, but when we have friends to the farm, I always encourage them to eat a flower or taste a petal because it's it's a unique experience. And they do look beautiful in a salad because it just gives ah a bit of brightness to it.
00:15:17
Jennifer Gulizia
That is so cool. Now I'm going to have to try that this summer, especially with my seedling patch. Now there's a new use for those flowers that aren't going to be cut to be sold.
00:15:27
Lorelie Merton
Yeah. And then with the Dahlia tubers, they taste a bit more like, um I'd say like a watery celery. That's probably like the closest thing. Like, yeah, they're not, like you can understand why potatoes became more popular.
00:15:36
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:15:42
Lorelie Merton
They don't taste that good. But um yeah, i have tried cooking them a few different ways, like as crisps or chips or that kind of thing um to see how they were.
00:15:46
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:15:52
Lorelie Merton
But yeah, I much prefer to eat potatoes.
00:15:56
Jennifer Gulizia
I did see that someone posted online Dahlia Tuber bread recipe that was like instead of zucchini bread, it was Dahlia Tuber bread.
00:16:06
Lorelie Merton
Yes.
00:16:06
Jennifer Gulizia
And I have to say I've never tried it, but now I'm a little bit curious after talking to you.
00:16:12
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, I think it would work pretty well because it would add the moisture.
00:16:13
Jennifer Gulizia
and so
00:16:15
Lorelie Merton
Like if you make like a zucchini bread, I think it would be fairly similar. But dahlias do have a very distinctive flavor. Like anyone who grows cut flowers and you're constantly like harvesting and stripping the leaves, you know, that smell that you get on your fingers that's like, oh, that smells like dahlias.
00:16:31
Jennifer Gulizia
a
00:16:32
Lorelie Merton
like They kind of taste like that too. So it's hard to separate the the scent and the flavor.
00:16:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, I'm so curious now, but I think I'd have a hard time eating them. Well, okay.
00:16:44
Lorelie Merton
You can't eat anything precious.
00:16:45
Jennifer Gulizia
So you started out with, what was that? I'm sorry.
00:16:50
Lorelie Merton
ah You don't want to eat any of your precious ones.
00:16:54
Jennifer Gulizia
No, definitely not. i i think that's why it would be too hard to eat them. But I'm thinking, oh, all of those seedlings that you pull, like it's such a shame to just compost all of those tuber clumps when you have a seedling that you're not going to carry on to the next year.
00:17:09
Lorelie Merton
Yes, yeah. They're actually the ones that we tried when we experimented with cooking them. And we tried to pick a few different um clumps because I figured, like the flowers, I know there are differences depending on the colour. I expected that there would also be differences based on the tuber. And I did find that to be the case, but I didn't record, you know, because they were seedlings, which type of tuber they they came from. But yes, you could definitely go down a rabbit hole there if you wanted to.
00:17:38
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that's so funny. I never expected that that was going to part of our conversation today. So you started with the petals, selling them as edibles. And then you mentioned that you mostly were growing from seed from day one.
00:17:52
Jennifer Gulizia
What percentage of your dahlia field is now your own seedlings?
00:17:52
Lorelie Merton
Yes, that's right.
00:17:57
Lorelie Merton
Oh, I'm actually not sure. I haven't done the maths on that. um The majority of dahlias that we grow are florally varieties now, ah definitely over 50%.
00:18:09
Lorelie Merton
ah I would say estimating like probably 70% the dahlias we grow now are ones that we've bred ourselves or that are still um in trials.
00:18:10
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
00:18:20
Lorelie Merton
And we find they really do perform better for us here than a lot of the other commercially available varieties that we've now discontinued.
00:18:28
Jennifer Gulizia
How did you get into the breeding piece of dahlias?
00:18:31
Lorelie Merton
Yeah. So I guess um I have... Jenny Parrish from Country Dahlias to thank for that. So when we first were interested in dahlias or in flowers in general, and I was looking up local flower farms that were within driving distance to go and visit, um there was really only one place that you could buy dahlia tubers from.
00:18:55
Lorelie Merton
um So I was probably fairly early in the Australian scene in terms of getting into it commercially or on a cut flower scale. are Most of the dahlia growers before then were more show growers and part of their local dahlia society.
00:19:09
Lorelie Merton
um And so when I started looking into it, yes, I found country dahlias, which was in Wintelsea at the time. um Or I could buy from some of like the bigger box stores, um which often have mislabeled tubers.
00:19:23
Lorelie Merton
um or mix-ups, that kind of thing.
00:19:25
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:19:25
Lorelie Merton
So, yeah, so I went to Country Dahlias and they have a had a big open garden. And so you could go there and wander around and you could order tubers for when they were digging them up.
00:19:36
Lorelie Merton
um And, yeah, I was just fascinated talking with Jenny, the owner there, about how how you could grow dahlias from seed and tuber and how that's how new varieties were bred. And she actually gave me my first seeds to grow.
00:19:52
Lorelie Merton
and showed me what a mature pod looked like and she let me collect some seeds from her farm and so yeah that was that first year when we grew about 200 seedlings and then yeah 100 tubers that I purchased from her as well and that was that first year.
00:20:00
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that's amazing.
00:20:09
Jennifer Gulizia
That's an incredible way to get started. So you started with several hundred seedlings. Did you have any breeding goals when you were starting out?
00:20:18
Lorelie Merton
No, I literally was like, is this a mature seed pod or not? And the majority of seedlings that we grew that year were colorettes or singles, because obviously the bees are very much drawn to those. And they were the pods that I found with the most mature seeds when I was collecting them from Country Dailys.
00:20:38
Jennifer Gulizia
So as you have expanded your dahlias, do you have certain goals when you're breeding dahlias or is it anything that's beautiful you will keep? what are What's your criteria?
00:20:49
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so because we're a cut flower farm and most of our Dahlia Tuber customers are also either selling cut flowers or growing cut flowers for their own use, having a dahlia that performs well as a cut flower is essential.
00:21:04
Lorelie Merton
So for us, we're looking at things like stem strength, um length, the bloom attachment, is it strong or is it a bobblehead as we call it?
00:21:06
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:21:16
Lorelie Merton
What's the petal count like? We want something with a lot of petals. We don't generally breed for singles or colorets or even anemones here on the farm because if you have a single and it's got, you know, six petals or eight petals and it loses a petal, all of a sudden that's unsaleable for us now.
00:21:35
Lorelie Merton
Whereas if you have a ball or a decorative form and it loses a petal, you can't even tell. So we want something that has a lot of petals because that gives our florists a longer vase life and it means that they can, yeah, really get the most out of that flower.
00:21:42
Jennifer Gulizia
Right.
00:21:50
Lorelie Merton
um So there's some of the things that we're looking for. We're also looking at the angle of the bloom. um We don't want one that's called, we call them chin tucked down. So we don't want one that's like looking down at the ground.
00:22:04
Lorelie Merton
Yep. So we don't want chin tucked down. We want ones that have a nice angle. So we're looking for that 45 degree. um Although actually i'm even leaning towards more upward than the show standards because I find those dahlias much more useful in a bouquet.
00:22:19
Lorelie Merton
because otherwise they're often, you know, looking at the paper that you're wrapping them in. It's much nicer if you're facing up.
00:22:24
Jennifer Gulizia
Right. Totally.
00:22:26
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so we're looking at, yeah, the bloom angle, the attachment, the petal count, the stem strength. We're also looking at the the way the plant branches. um So sometimes you'll have a plant that has lots of really lovely, long, straight stems, and then other ones branch a bit awkwardly, and it's harder to get the length on those stems when you're cutting.
00:22:48
Lorelie Merton
um or you end up sacrificing a lot of the plant, which means you're sacrificing leaves and future health and growth on that plant if you're cutting a lot of mass off the plant. um Yeah, so they're definitely some of the things that we're looking for as cut flower growers.
00:23:05
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you have specific colors that you're going for? Or if they meet all of the rest of the criteria, it doesn't matter the color.
00:23:12
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so primarily we're breeding for bloom type and cut flower suitability. Yes, we definitely pay attention to the colour, but if something is ticking all of those other boxes, I'll keep it anyway.
00:23:28
Lorelie Merton
Like yellow is not particularly popular, particularly a bright, you know, punch you in the face kind of yellow. um but we I would still keep something like that and we would use it for breeding. Also yellow is recessive in terms of colours. So we actually want some yellows in our breeding program because um we're more likely to get the colours than that we want by crossing something else with that.
00:23:54
Lorelie Merton
um But yeah, yeah.
00:23:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, interesting.
00:23:58
Lorelie Merton
I don't know you've read Kristine Albrecht's book on Dahlia breeding.
00:24:03
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:24:04
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so I really find it.
00:24:05
Jennifer Gulizia
It's a great book. I have it. I missed the part on the yellow though.
00:24:08
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so she's got some interesting information in there in terms of colors and groups. um So yes so there's some of the things that we're looking for, but also for a cut flower farm,
00:24:21
Lorelie Merton
farm our customers are primarily florists. Um, and the most popular color with florists is usually pink. Um, because the shop florists can always sell pink and same with wedding and event florists. They often also want shades of pink.
00:24:38
Lorelie Merton
Um, so, and anything that would be suitable for a wedding. So we really want, you know, pinks and peaches and, um, Ivories and blush and white ah pastels are much more popular for us than brights because we don't do markets.
00:24:54
Lorelie Merton
If you're a market grower, then I think, yeah, really hone in on that bright um and quirky market, like maybe even the stripes or the bicolours. But I think for us, because we're primarily growing for florists, we find that, yeah, the pastels and the pinks do a lot better for us. Yeah.
00:25:14
Lorelie Merton
But in saying that, I guess because we also sell Dahlia tubers and that's become a bigger part of our business now, even than the cut flowers, um our Dahlia tuber customers, there are those who are growing for cut flowers who want those wedding colors or the pinks. And then we also have customers who just want something that's really quirky and fun to be in their garden.
00:25:34
Lorelie Merton
And so they want the bicolours and they want the stripy things and they want the big ones that are like bigger than your head. So we try to grow a big range of dahlias now to kind of appeal to lots of different people.
00:25:47
Jennifer Gulizia
I love it. So it sounds very similar to colors that are popular and trending here in the US as well. You've been breeding for quite a while now. How long does it take you from the time that you start a dahlia from seed and identify it as being a promising one until you release it to the Australian market?
00:26:09
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so when I first started growing dahlias from seed, I was just following what the Dahlia Society of Victoria recommended, and they recommended growing something for three years as a minimum. And so that means a dahlia growing from seed will flower within that first season that you plant it.
00:26:28
Lorelie Merton
So we would evaluate that, choose the ones that we like, then propagate the tubers. We don't take any cuttings on our farm. um We just propagate via tuber division.
00:26:39
Lorelie Merton
So plant out those tubers, evaluate it the second year, divide the tubers, plant it out a third year. And by that stage, you've got kind of ah a larger quantity. um And then we were releasing it after that third year. However, the past couple of years, we've actually transitioned to a four-year growing in evaluation.
00:27:01
Lorelie Merton
um Because there were a few things I released after three years that I was actually disappointed with because I felt like they deteriorated in that fourth year and they weren't as stable as I thought that they were. um And also from a ah quantity perspective. So because we're not taking cuttings and we're only doing tuber division,
00:27:20
Lorelie Merton
um those tubers would sell out so quickly. And then we would have customers who are frustrated or disappointed that they didn't get what they want. um And also then we're we're missing opportunities as a business.
00:27:33
Lorelie Merton
And so the past two years, we've moved to a four-year breeding and evaluation before we release a new variety.
00:27:43
Jennifer Gulizia
Perfect. Thank you for explaining that. I had a couple of fourth year seedlings this last year. And one of them I felt like kind of degraded this last year, but we also moved to a new farm and our soil is less than perfect right now. So I decided I'm going to keep it for a fifth year and pray that it comes back looking better as our soil improves this next year.
00:28:04
Jennifer Gulizia
ah But it's hard to build up the tubers, especially if you're not taking cuttings to have enough, like you were talking about, to release them. Is the Dahlia craze and Dahlia wars just as crazy in Australia as it is here in the U.S.?
00:28:18
Lorelie Merton
I would say yes, it is. I feel like this year in terms of our own tuba sale, it didn't feel quite so stressful to me, but I felt like we had really good quantities of stock this year.
00:28:31
Lorelie Merton
um And so I think most customers were able to get the majority of what they wanted if they were there within the first 24, even 48 hours of the sale, which is amazing. Like that has not been the case um any year previously. And this was the last year where we actually still had some stock remaining, even when we closed the website. And yeah, that's never happened before. So I think the craze, either we're growing a lot more um or the craze is slightly decreasing. I'm not sure.
00:29:03
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, you said you're growing 20,000 dahlias. Okay. Gotcha.
00:29:07
Lorelie Merton
That's right. But that does include 3,000 first year seedlings from the breeding program.
00:29:12
Jennifer Gulizia
okay
00:29:13
Lorelie Merton
And then we also have now then our second year, our third year and our fourth year seedlings as part of that part of that field. So it is yeah a large percentage of seedlings that are not necessarily being sold in any given year.
00:29:30
Jennifer Gulizia
ahcha Now, when you have 3000 first year seedlings, which I want to pause and just say, wow, that is so many first year seedlings. We did 1200 last year and I was like, oh, I can barely keep up with all the record keeping of this many. So that's a huge accomplishment to be able to keep track of that many. What percentage of those first year seedlings go on to a second year for evaluation?
00:29:55
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, less than 100. Yeah, it depends a bit on what
Farm Management and Family Involvement
00:30:00
Lorelie Merton
our goals are. And I actually have a friend, her name's Myra Lynn.
00:30:06
Lorelie Merton
She has a PhD in plant breeding. um And she used to work with eucalyptus. And now she works for a vegetable seed company, the same one that my husband, Ethan, was working for.
00:30:18
Lorelie Merton
um So that's how I met her. And so I've partnered with her to do some plant breeding as well. And so um she's also making selections from my seedlings based on her goals and criteria. So there might be some things that ah I wouldn't keep because they don't meet my criteria as a cut flower, um but they do meet some of the goals that she's working towards.
00:30:44
Lorelie Merton
So it might be the bloom size. So she might be trying to increase the bloom size on something in particular, but she also wants to keep it from the same parent because she's been doing a lot of like like parent line breeding. And so, yeah, so the 100 or so that we kept um this last year out of our about 3,000 seedlings.
00:31:07
Lorelie Merton
um yeah ah Yeah, but then i would say in second year, we would discontinue at least 50% of those. So then from that original 3,000, you've cut down to about 50 plants.
00:31:23
Lorelie Merton
um And then usually a percentage then will drop out in that third year. And then, yeah, if they make it to the fourth year, then, yeah, it's it's a very small percentage really when you think about how many you begin with.
00:31:36
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. Do you know how many varieties you have released so far?
00:31:42
Lorelie Merton
I do have that information somewhere. ah I think it's over 50.
00:31:47
Jennifer Gulizia
Sorry, I did not give you that as a question.
00:31:47
Lorelie Merton
Yeah. No, that's okay.
00:31:50
Lorelie Merton
I think it's over 50.
00:31:50
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:31:50
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow.
00:31:54
Jennifer Gulizia
That's impressive. I'm and very impressed.
00:31:55
Lorelie Merton
Yeah.
00:31:58
Jennifer Gulizia
What's your favorite one that you've released so far? Or do you have a favorite?
00:32:03
Lorelie Merton
I have a different favorite every year. so i So I actually have two answers to that question. So my favorite um is Florally Cosmic Romance.
00:32:15
Lorelie Merton
It's a beautiful deep red with white tips. And when that is good, it is just so beautiful. And I really love um romantic blooms. So it's anything that's, you know, those deep reds, which aren't actually all that popular or trending at the moment. I love those. So give me all the mute moody kind of, you know, plummy burgundy kind of blooms. So I love Cosmic Romance. um But I would say the most popular one in terms of with our customers or worldwide would be Floraly Antique.
00:32:48
Jennifer Gulizia
Those are beautiful. Now you said worldwide. Are you able to ship your tubers around the world?
00:32:54
Lorelie Merton
Okay. That's a bit complicated question, actually. So we can't, no. um However, some of our customers have worked with export companies who will organise the phytosanitary certificates and the paperwork that they require for exports.
00:33:11
Lorelie Merton
um I'm sure there are also some customers who are not doing it the right way and who just take something home in a suitcase or get a friend or someone to mail it to them. But we definitely have customers who are doing it the right way and are working with a third party in order to get that paperwork so that they can import them legally.
00:33:32
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing that they're able to do that because I know the shipping standards are so strict across countries.
00:33:37
Lorelie Merton
They are, yeah, yeah.
00:33:38
Jennifer Gulizia
So, but you yourself, your farm is not...
00:33:42
Lorelie Merton
No, we're not able to send them directly. So actually, even in the last couple of months, we've really just kind of stepped into doing some cleaning for export. So it's it's pretty basic, just like cleaning tubers, removing the roots. We have to cut back the shoots, clean them with a toothbrush to get as much dirt off them as possible.
00:34:04
Lorelie Merton
We can't package them in soil, so we've been packing them in a different way. They have to have different stickers and labels. um So we've literally had three that we're trialling through this new process and then working with an export company that then the customer has to um arrange with them to pay for their phytosanitary certificate and any additional paperwork that they need in order to get them into a America or Canada in this particular case.
00:34:32
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing. I know I've seen a few of your varieties start popping up in the U.S. and there's probably more that i don't know about as well, but it's one of those things where i feel like we're so interconnected throughout the kind or throughout our different countries, but then when you see these Dahlia varieties that you can get in other countries, you're like, oh, I want that.
00:34:52
Jennifer Gulizia
um But it's not so easy to get them yet. Yeah.
00:34:56
Lorelie Merton
No, and I mean, Australian growers feel the same way. Like we're always seeing stuff, particularly from America or England, that we can't get or it's going to cost like literally thousands of dollars to bring into the country.
00:35:09
Lorelie Merton
um But it looks like maybe there might be another way to get them in. but um So I'm talking with someone else about that at the moment and maybe one day we'll have some more American varieties over here.
00:35:20
Lorelie Merton
So we'll see.
00:35:21
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that would be exciting. Other than through our suitcases.
00:35:23
Lorelie Merton
Yes. Oh yeah, I don't want to do it that way. So yeah, so I'm talking with someone about a a way that we can get them in properly through quarantine.
00:35:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. We went to New Zealand. i was telling you offline this last year, about this time last year. And in my mind, I was like, I wonder if I could bring anything back with me. And we're in line for customs entering the country.
00:35:48
Jennifer Gulizia
And this mom behind us had her two-year-old son, our daughter on her hip. And I mean, it was a two-hour customs process at like five o'clock in the morning. And they get to everyone and they ask this lady, do you have anything to declare? And she says, no.
00:36:02
Jennifer Gulizia
Her son in the diaper bag had carrots. And they found carrots and it was like a $500 fine for having carrots. And i was like, if you can get fined $500 for carrots, I'm not risking bringing anything back through my suitcase and customs.
00:36:18
Jennifer Gulizia
So...
00:36:19
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, I think if you declare it, um then they wouldn't give you a fine. Because I know um a number of years ago, it was like 11 years ago or something now, my husband and I went to the Netherlands and I purchased some tulips there and they all had the phytosanitary certificates and everything.
00:36:37
Lorelie Merton
But I did declare them when I got back here and they just took them away and disposed of them. But I didn't get a fine. um But yeah, I still couldn't bring them in even with the certificates because they're very strict.
00:36:48
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that's such a bummer. And they probably weren't cheap either.
00:36:51
Lorelie Merton
No, they weren't, but you know, it was a risk. I thought it was worth taking.
00:36:58
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. um So you have been on your farm for almost a decade now. Is that right?
00:37:06
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, yeah, about nine years, yeah.
00:37:10
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. And with Ethan's background as an agronomist, when you bought your property, was it already a healthy, thriving farm in terms of the soil health? Or have you had to do work on your farm to be able to nurture the soil so that you can grow beautiful dahlias and flowers?
00:37:28
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so the area that we have bought in is a really large like potato farming area and it has fairly rich volcanic soil. So the soil here is pretty good already.
00:37:39
Lorelie Merton
um When we purchased this farm, it had been used as a paddock for bulls. And so obviously there's a lot of natural fertiliser there, so that was good.
00:37:47
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:37:49
Lorelie Merton
um But yeah, we do also fertilise quite a bit. And really when we first moved here, we weren't sure quite what the soil had or what the plants needed and so we really treated our crop like it was a hydroponic crop and so we made sure that we gave them everything that they needed through the irrigation so we fertigate so we dissolve fertilizer and then put it out through our irrigation system and that's the primary means that we have of feeding our plants at the moment
00:38:24
Jennifer Gulizia
I guess with the size of your operation, it would take forever to hand spray everything. So the fertigation makes sense.
00:38:31
Lorelie Merton
Yeah. Yeah. And we do also like rotate our paddocks.
00:38:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Do you use more?
00:38:35
Lorelie Merton
So we don't plant in the same paddock every year. Um, so we actually have four paddocks that we rotate our dahlias between, um, cause we're treating them much like the potato farmers, um,
00:38:40
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:38:48
Lorelie Merton
also grow potatoes in the district. So it's not a good idea to continue planting in the same soil year after year because you can get a buildup of problems in the soil. um And verticillium wilt is the main thing that we're trying to avoid here.
00:39:03
Lorelie Merton
And so we, with our four paddocks, it means that we give, we give the paddock a rest of a year off in between growing, and then we give it a break of five years.
00:39:14
Lorelie Merton
So we do paddock A, paddock B,
00:39:16
Jennifer Gulizia
wow
00:39:17
Lorelie Merton
paddock A, paddock B, and then we give them a break. And then we do paddock C, paddock D, paddock C, paddock D, and then go back to that soil. So it means that five-year break means that they really have a chance to to break any any problems that there are in the soil.
00:39:35
Lorelie Merton
And that quick kind of year on, year off means that it's not long enough to build up any significant problems, but then it's got the five years to kind of um any of those problems to dissipate.
00:39:48
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. I love that approach. And you obviously have the space to be able to do that, even with the scale of your dahlias. When you give it a year off, are you planting a cover crop or are you planting other flowers? What is happening to that empty field?
00:40:04
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, sorry the goal is a cover crop. The reality is Ethan was working full-time off the farm as an agronomist and he was helping people with their farms and didn't have as much time to spend on our own. And if you miss that planting window, then sometimes that was there wasn't enough time then to get a cover crop up and going and then...
00:40:26
Lorelie Merton
work it in again before we were planting there. So we do also have sheep. And so we rotate the sheep into the paddocks that we aren't growing flowers in for that year.
00:40:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:40:36
Lorelie Merton
So yeah. So yes, we try and get a cover crop in and then we rotate the sheep into that paddock once the cover crop is up enough.
00:40:45
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that approach. And then are you having to till in between or are you no till? How does that operate for your farm?
00:40:52
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, we do till. And we're not an organic farm, so we do use some synthetic fertilizers and things like that as well.
00:41:00
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. How many sheep do you have?
00:41:05
Lorelie Merton
About 50 is probably the size of the flock on average. I think we have like 46 or something currently.
00:41:14
Jennifer Gulizia
And do you sell the meat or do you shear them for their fur? What do you do with your sheep?
00:41:19
Lorelie Merton
Okay, so we have wilt shear horn. And so they're a self-shedding sheep. So they don't need shearing, but you can't use the wool for anything.
00:41:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that's amazing.
00:41:29
Lorelie Merton
um Yeah, that's right.
00:41:31
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:41:31
Lorelie Merton
So they're really here to manage the grass in the paddocks. And then, yes, we do eat our sheep. And if we get too many sheep, then we'll sell some to to someone locally or take them to the market.
00:41:44
Lorelie Merton
But yeah, they supply us with lamb year round.
00:41:49
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing.
00:41:51
Jennifer Gulizia
I love it. And then your children, how old are your three kids?
00:41:55
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so they're 11, 10 and eight at the moment. And yeah, our eldest just started high school today. so that was exciting for her. And the other two yeah went back to their first day of primary school for this year.
00:42:08
Jennifer Gulizia
And do they help on the farm also?
00:42:12
Lorelie Merton
Some things, but not others. So I'm fairly particular about harvesting and we sterilize our snips in between every plant when we're cutting flowers. um I don't think the kids would really be that keen on doing that at the moment. It could be because of we're trying to minimize the risk of any spread of virus between plants. That's why we sterilize. um I don't mind if they pick other things.
00:42:37
Lorelie Merton
But the dahlias in particular, because we sell tubers, it's really important that they stay clean.
Community Engagement and Agritourism
00:42:42
Lorelie Merton
Whereas anything that's an annual that's grown from a seed that we're replanting every year, we don't worry about sterilizing there. So the kids will pick, you know, zinnias or cosmos or celosia, things like that. And that's fine.
00:42:55
Lorelie Merton
um But really the thing they love to help with is when we're packing dahlia tuber orders, um, So yeah, Annie in particular, our middle child, she loves to look for shoots. She'll be like, oh, it's got an eye. This one's got an eye. And so yeah, she'll come and help do and then do that and pull them out. And then either Ethan or I or one of the staff will cross check them obviously before they go out to a customer.
00:43:19
Lorelie Merton
um And Isabella eldest, she loves to pick and pack. So when we get the customer's packing slip, she likes to go and get that off and tick it off the list. Yeah.
00:43:31
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so I think they prefer to help in the shed with those more like routine jobs. And then Jake, our youngest, he's on the eight. So he' he's not quite so much into things like that at the moment. He's always loved digging and he loves machinery. So he's just started learning to ride the zero turn mower. And so, yeah, he's done a little bit of mowing. But I think when he gets a bit more competent there, that will be much more helpful.
00:44:00
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, I love it. That's so fun. My daughter's 11 as well, and she's she likes to pick occasionally some zinnias and cosmos, basic things, but not much of a farm help yet, and that's okay.
00:44:13
Jennifer Gulizia
But it's always challenging to be...
00:44:13
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, I think.
00:44:16
Lorelie Merton
Sorry, you go.
00:44:17
Jennifer Gulizia
Go ahead, sorry.
00:44:19
Lorelie Merton
i was going to say, I think it's nice.
00:44:20
Jennifer Gulizia
We have this a little bit of delay as we're recording.
00:44:24
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, I think it's nice as they grow up in the farm to kind of see the different jobs that get done and to find ways that they can be, you know, helpful and useful and feel like they're contributing and they're also part of the farm, particularly because it's a family business.
00:44:26
Jennifer Gulizia
right.
00:44:38
Lorelie Merton
But I think really for for my kids, particularly the girls, they love to take flowers to their teachers. So either, at their you know, if it's Easter or if it's like a special occasion or as an end of term, thank you. Yeah, if we have any flowers, they'll always be like, can I pick flowers for my teacher? So that's a really lovely way that they can be involved with the flowers too.
00:45:01
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that's so sweet. ah Here we have kindergarten through fifth grade is one school. And we have started a tradition back in kindergarten that every teacher gets a bouquet at the start of the school year. i was thinking about it since your kids went back to school today. And so this year we had to bring, she was she's in fifth grade. And so we had to bring kindergarten through fifth grade bouquets. So we're like bringing these buckets full of flowers on the first day of school for all of her teachers.
00:45:30
Jennifer Gulizia
So. It's fun to be able to bring teachers flowers.
00:45:31
Lorelie Merton
Oh, that's lovely. Yeah.
00:45:35
Lorelie Merton
It's beautiful.
00:45:36
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, is there anything that I haven't asked you about your farm that you want to share with our listeners today?
00:45:44
Lorelie Merton
I can't think of anything in particular, like we've talked about breeding and then the cut flower side. um Yeah. Like I really love growing cut flowers. It's such a joy. and I never actually expected to be doing this full time.
00:46:00
Lorelie Merton
I thought I would go back to my job as a speech pathologist, um, after having kids. And I did a little bit, I was doing some part-time work and some casual work in there, but I really love it. And it's such a joy to be able to, um, share the beauty of flowers with other people and, um, create something new that people haven't seen before. And I love connecting with our customers, whether that's, you know, via Instagram or at workshops, um,
00:46:25
Lorelie Merton
or on-farm events. Yeah, just encouraging them in their growing journey. ah I guess that's something else we didn't talk about. We didn't talk about workshops. um And we do run like dahlia dividing workshops over winter to teach people how to divide their own dahlia clumps and get that really hands-on help, um as well as talk more generally about growing dahlias. And then ah all of our customers get to take home lots of dahlia tubers as well.
00:46:55
Lorelie Merton
And then last dahlia season was the first time that we ran some on-farm events while we had flowers. And so we ran some afternoon teas in the dahlia field and they were really popular and well-received. So we will be offering those again later this season once they' the dahlia start blooming. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to that. It's been fun to try something a little bit different. Yeah.
00:47:20
Lorelie Merton
And I love planning, so I really like that thinking about curating an experience for someone and what I want the tables to look like and how I want people to feel when they come and, yeah, just making it a really special event.
00:47:35
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. Tell us a little bit more about, you said it's dahlias or tea in the dahlias. Is that what you called it?
00:47:42
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, we call it afternoon tea. um so I guess it would be similar to some what some people call a high tea. Uh, so I'll set up some long tables in the field. Um, yeah, with tablecloths and napkins and vintage China and, um, have sandwiches and mini quiches and, um, little sweets like macarons and slices and things like that.
00:48:05
Lorelie Merton
Um, and people can just wander around the field and, um, take photos and, um, maybe make a wish list for what they want to grow in another year. And we usually have a competition as well. So we'll have some seedlings from our breeding program that don't have a name yet. And so people can suggest names for those.
00:48:25
Lorelie Merton
And then usually Ethan and I share a bit about the farm and yeah, how we got into what we're doing and um yeah, just share some information about that and just talk to people. So it's a fairly informal event. I wouldn't,
00:48:40
Lorelie Merton
say that it's like, it's not like a training or educational workshop. It's more ah a social, enjoyable afternoon out in the Dahlia field.
00:48:49
Jennifer Gulizia
It sounds like people love it though. How many people come to each event?
00:48:54
Lorelie Merton
Yeah. So last year was the first time that I did that. So um I was a recipient of like a training grant from our local tourism um body. And so through that mentoring program, they wanted to help me to develop an agritourism event on the farm. And so, yeah, so that's why we got the afternoon teas up and running last year. And that was the first year that we offered them. So we offered four across two different weekends.
00:49:22
Lorelie Merton
um And we kept things fairly small because we were still kind of, I guess, just finding our feet. um So I think we had 16 people come to each of those events.
00:49:35
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing. i love that you... have an area that you live in an area that supports the tourism with agritourism because where I am in Oregon, i was just having this conversation with a fellow farmer yesterday. Our area that frowns upon agritourism and it's so hard because we need people to come to our farms and to experience these things. So I get so many great ideas, ah hearing stories like that. And that sounds like such a fun event and a great way to get people to experience a farm.
00:50:07
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, and you know it's a pretty non-threatening environment and people love to come and see a flower ah field full of flowers. And it's different than the other options that you have. Like there's a local sunflower farm and that's, I actually haven't been there, but you know I've seen photos and it looks beautiful, but it's also just a field of just one type of flower.
00:50:26
Lorelie Merton
And dahlias, like going to a dahlias farm is really different because for us, we mostly try and plant in rows of the same type because that makes it efficient for harvest.
00:50:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:50:36
Lorelie Merton
but every row is a different type and then when you walk through the seedling patch it's just like every single plant in here is different and has never been seen before and i think people just really love that experience of just their um the lushness of dahlias because they're quite different to other flowers in that you often pick flowers at like a bud stage and so you don't get to
00:50:54
Jennifer Gulizia
yes
00:51:01
Lorelie Merton
If you walk through a field of lilies, if they're open, it's like the farmer has already lost the money because they can't sell those now. um Same with a field of sunflowers.
00:51:09
Jennifer Gulizia
Right.
00:51:10
Lorelie Merton
But with dahlias, it's like they need to be, you know, like 90% open to be picking them anyway. So um it's just a really unique experience to be able to walk through a dahlia field and see so much colour.
Advice for Aspiring Flower Farmers
00:51:22
Jennifer Gulizia
That's such a great point. It's always so fun. I love going to other farmers' fields and walking and seeing their dahlias, especially the seedling patches, because like you said, it's the first time ever seeing that variety. So that's really special. Thank you for sharing that.
00:51:38
Lorelie Merton
No worries.
00:51:40
Jennifer Gulizia
Is there any advice that you would like to give our listeners today? Anything that you have learned along the way that you think would be helpful for someone starting out?
00:51:53
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, I think um a couple of things. Firstly, I'll give you Ethan's advice because I found this really helpful for me, not really being a plant person when I started, like I wasn't a gardener or anything.
00:52:06
Lorelie Merton
And his advice was check your plants. Um, cause he would be like, how are your plants today? And i be like, I don't know. I've just been concentrating on picking flowers. i haven't, you know, paid attention to the leaves. I haven't, you know, dug to see what the moisture is like in the soil.
00:52:21
Lorelie Merton
Um, and so I think if you're really planning on growing any kind of quantity of flowers or plants in general, check your plants. Um, so I found that really helpful.
00:52:30
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:52:31
Lorelie Merton
And then I guess another bit of advice would be to just give things a go, but also don't go too big. um Because I did on a few things and I have killed a lot of plants and essentially that's wasted money. So yeah, if you if you want to have ah have a go by all means do it, but just don't go too big because the risks are much larger.
00:52:56
Jennifer Gulizia
That's great advice. Yes. i think I had some friends laughing at me the other day or saying they can't wait to see what I do with all of my feverfugues. I planted 120 feet of feverfugues for this season, which I'm going to be swimming in feverfugues. But I love it. I'm like, I'm going to dry whatever I don't sell. But I might have a really tough lesson also.
00:53:16
Jennifer Gulizia
So...
00:53:16
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, yeah. At least feverfew is grown from seed, so it's not as expensive. I planted a whole row of proteas and I only have one of them that's still alive.
00:53:26
Lorelie Merton
And I mean, by planted a whole row, I mean, probably planted like 70 proteas and only one is alive.
00:53:28
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh no.
00:53:32
Lorelie Merton
So that was an expensive lesson.
00:53:35
Jennifer Gulizia
ah Yes, those are always hard, hard lessons to learn. Thank you for sharing those.
00:53:43
Jennifer Gulizia
So this year I've started something new on the backyard bouquet podcast. I started asking a few quick fire questions at the end of our conversation. And there's just four last questions I have here to wrap this up. And the first one is what is your favorite flower to grow or work with and why?
00:54:02
Lorelie Merton
surprise, dahlias. So they just have such
00:54:06
Jennifer Gulizia
do you have a favorite variety?
00:54:10
Lorelie Merton
oh, like I said, i like florally cosmic romance. um But I just think, i just love any flower that has a lot of petals. um so it's the reason why I like dahlias and peonies uh I like things like ranunculus or lupins I just like flowers that have a lot of petals um but yeah I think dahlias are amazing they're such an incredible range of colors and shapes and sizes in this particular flower family I think that's really something that appeals to everyone um whether it's like
00:54:25
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:54:44
Lorelie Merton
a cute little pom-pom that's like as small as a golf ball or whether it's yet a giant dinner plate, whether you like things that are really neat, um, with very ordered petals or you like something that's, you know, wavy and wild or, um, has the, the, like the snipped kind of, um, fimbriated petal tips, uh, whether you like stripes, um, like they're really just like a fascinating flower family. Uh,
00:55:09
Lorelie Merton
When I first started growing flowers, peonies were my favourite and that's why I started collecting those. But dahlias have um definitely taken the lead now because, yeah, they're incredible.
00:55:22
Lorelie Merton
And the way they um multiply and you can propagate them so easily, um like it's, yeah, they're they're amazing. So, yeah, love dahlias.
00:55:33
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, you're preaching to the choir here. I love them too. and Next question. Why do local flowers matter to you?
00:55:42
Lorelie Merton
Yeah. So I think there are a few things here. And one of them is just like local business matters, supporting local people, keeping money in your local community matters.
00:55:50
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:55:54
Lorelie Merton
Also, local flowers are going to be fresher. because they haven't had to travel so far. They're grown in your own climate. So they're more often hardier and have a better vase life.
00:56:07
Lorelie Merton
But yeah, i'd say I'd say the biggest thing is actually that, you know, we want to support local. We want to keep our economy strong. We want people to to live and work in this area and to support other small businesses.
00:56:20
Jennifer Gulizia
Perfect. Thank you. a Great answer. And the next question, what's one thing you wish more people understood about the floral industry?
00:56:30
Lorelie Merton
Farming is work. I think a lot of people think growing flowers is like, yeah, a hobby or it's easy or we're just kind of, you know, even some of Ethan's farming friends from like the work that he was doing before, they've come to visit him now that he's working full time on the farm.
00:56:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm hmm.
00:56:50
Lorelie Merton
And they're still shocked that this is, oh, this is actual farming. Like this is a job. It's like, yes, it's a lot of work maintaining this many plants and keeping them healthy and and harvesting.
00:57:03
Lorelie Merton
Like, you know, we're harvesting for like a number of hours. every day like we often start picking at um five or six a.m and we're picking through until 10 30 or 11 and then um getting everything into the cool room and um doing deliveries like it's it's a full-time job um for multiple people so full-time for ethan and i but we also have staff helping us um And I think people don't really don't really get that or they ask, what do you do when there aren't any flowers? Like they think, you know, we're only picking flowers from,
00:57:36
Lorelie Merton
you know, January until April, and then we have the rest of the year off. It's like, no, we have to like dig up 20,000 dahlias out of the paddock. And in previous years, we've done that with a garden fork.
00:57:48
Lorelie Merton
um This year, we're hoping to mechanize that, but we're not there yet. So we might still be digging 20,000 with a garden fork. And then you've got to store them all. You've got to divide them all. That's like an intense job as well.
00:58:03
Lorelie Merton
Then we're packaging things and shipping um And then you're getting ready for planting again, like dahlias in particular are a year round crop. And with the quantity we grow, we actually don't really have a break.
00:58:17
Lorelie Merton
We just kind of move from one task to the next task. um Oh, yeah. And then it starts again.
00:58:23
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes.
00:58:24
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, we're in the middle of the winter right now here. And I have people constantly ask me, oh, it must be so nice to have some downtime. What are you doing? There's no flowers. And I'm like, I'm still digging dahlias. But
00:58:38
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, it's a massive job.
00:58:38
Jennifer Gulizia
yeah, it it doesn't end.
00:58:39
Jennifer Gulizia
it It's a year round.
00:58:42
Lorelie Merton
Yeah.
00:58:42
Jennifer Gulizia
And the pitchfork, oh, to recognize it would be so nice. i I don't know how many pitchforks I've broke or bent this year with our new field and all of our big boulders that are underground.
00:58:53
Lorelie Merton
Oh, we have a very rocky area.
00:58:54
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay, my last...
00:58:57
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes, we're at the base of a mountain ah that also has a lot of volcanic soil and a lot of volcanic rock. Okay, my last question on the quick fire here. What are you most grateful for that flowers has given you beyond the blooms?
00:59:16
Lorelie Merton
I definitely have to say the connection with other people. um Like right from the start when I started just sharing my interest on Instagram about growing flowers and finding other accounts that were also doing the same.
00:59:29
Lorelie Merton
um like just getting like it's people who get you like there are a lot of people who are you know i'm friends with and uh they admire what i do but they don't understand quite the same um and so yeah i've really loved connecting with other like-minded people who also love growing flowers or understand what it's like running a small business um And yeah, I've made some really genuine friendships from people that I've connected with because of flowers.
01:00:00
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so I'm really grateful for that.
Connecting with Floralea Online and Conclusion
01:00:02
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. And you teed that up perfectly for my final question today. For those that want to stay connected to you after this interview, where can they find you?
01:00:14
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, so I'm most active on Instagram and our Instagram is at floraleeseasonalflowers and floralee is spelt F-L-O-R-E-L-I-E. We also are on Facebook, but I'm less active on Facebook than Instagram. And we do have a website, which is floralee.com.au.
01:00:36
Lorelie Merton
And that's where we obviously sell our daily YouTubers and tickets to different on-farm events and workshops. But yeah, I would love to connect with you on Instagram.
01:00:47
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing. Thank you for sharing those. And we will have links to each of your social media channels and your web website on today's show notes. Loralee, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast. This was such a treat to get to meet you and chat with you today.
01:01:04
Jennifer Gulizia
And we can't wait to see all your beautiful flowers start to emerge here in a few weeks. And I'm sure you'll be sharing those on social media.
01:01:12
Lorelie Merton
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for having me and for chatting with me about our farm.
01:01:17
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes. Thank you. Have a great day. Bye-bye.
01:01:20
Lorelie Merton
You too. Bye.