A Small Breather
Hello lovely people who read our newsletters! Sorry it has been so long between our news! The spring has hit us hard this year and we only just had a small breather to sit down and write something for you to enjoy.
This year we had a booster crop of Tulips going out to all the florists, public and new floral friends. We will strive to do this again next year and to fill your spring with gorgeous blooms locally growing right here in little old Wanaka.
We also had an addition of Peonies this year that are just coming into bloom now and will be available only to Wanaka market as we have limited numbers of these guys planted. Our peonies are not for mass production and serve more as a flower we love to grow and share with local people, small amounts of different varieties is what we went for and hopefully through the years we will grow our fields by dividing the stock we have.
While we are waiting for peonies to come it has still been a very busy time on the farm. Sowing seeds, improving soil and fighting frosts. We had a bit of a disappointing season for Anemones this year but we hope this is just due to the fact we did not give them enough love and shade. The plot is in full sun and these guys are originally from forests where they are forced to reach for the sun under the canopy of trees. Never mind we will put some shade cloths up next year!
Roses are on their way and we have survived the winter with minimal damages to our roses and maximum extension to rose collection. I am hoping to slowly build up our collection through the years and offer lovely roses to everyone around us. At this stage we will have limited numbers of garden roses available all through summer for flower lovers to enjoy.
Another crop that should be abundant is Larkspur and Zinnias this year. We have a huge number of zinnias sown and they all have come up promising good colour selection in near future. Larkspur is now higher than me and will pop into colour very soon! Watch this space. Achillia has wintered over really well and we will be selling it fresh and drying it this year, same as Gypsophilla. Scabiosa, Corncockle, Snapdragons, Asters and Bells of Ireland are all on their way as well as Cosmos and Amaranthus. They all just need to come out of their seed trays this weekend and get a good space to grow.
Another project we have started is Dahlias. We never wanted to grow them in bulk simply because there are enough growers around to flood the market with gorgeous blooms, and we really did not want to compete with that. However last year we kept getting requests for Dahlias and quite honestly ended up buying dahlias from other growers around us just to fill the orders. So this year we have 1.5 rows of Dahlias planted and ready to go. Most of these are from seed so we will not know the shape or the colour of the flower till it comes into bloom but we do have a few tried and true varieties from tubers which should be enough for the demand that we had last year.
Other than that, we have been busy trying to improve soil on the farm and actually trying to step back a bit and not overdo it for the market that is post Covid-19 Floral industry. Putting time into perennials and soil health now, while the market is not as busy, will hopefully set us up for a successful years ahead with plenty of growing and less weeding and row set ups. For now we are hoping to have just enough for everyone to enjoy the blooms and to supply our local florists and wedding vendors.
Thank you for reading, supporting, buying from us and just being interested in flower madness that is Alpine Blooms Farm. We are very happy to live and grow in this gorgeous environment and hoping to do this for years to come.
