More flowers for Mother's Day

As usual the flowers ran out. The florists were phoning long after we'd sold our last flower. On the following Monday the phone started again. They were all bereft of blooms and desperate for flowers to start the week. Many florists have corporate clients that need flowers on the Monday to grace their offices.

As it turned out we had a good pick on the Monday - so all florists got a delivery and we had not shortages.

The plants are looking good and because the weather is more settled - warm sunny days and cool nights consistently, the flowers are doing very well. They love this sort of weather.

We have had a little rain, but not much. Not enough to break the drought. Enough to keep the grass green. Just.

Flower on the table.

We'd booked into the Moreton Bay Trailer Boat Club for Mothers Day breakfast - but this year there were fresh flowers on the table. We sat on their new deck with views out across Manly Harbour and Moreton Bay. It was slightly overcast, but clearned during the morning giving a spectacular backdrop to the venue.

A wonderful breakfast - the above gerbera - of course from our Gerbera Farm was on our table, and each table in the entire club had one of our flowers on it.

It was very special.

Mother's Day

This is one of our biggest days. Our prices go up - just a little. We are probably way too conservative. Our wonderful flowers were selling for $10 a bunch, but in the markets they were up to $30 a bunch.

We picked extra days this week, and sold all we had. We even had a phone call at 7 pm last night (Saturday) from a florist desperate for more flowers. We can only give what we have - and that is nothing. Nothing is left.

Little Miss had her flower stall on Thursday afternoon - and made another almost $100 - so she is doing well.

We are going to breakfast at the Moreton Bay Trailer Boat Club - as we did last year. We were disappointed that last year they had plastic flowers. This year (after my comments) they have fresh flowers - our gerberas.

Weird flower

Every now and then one of our beautiful gerbera flowers will have a flaw. This one has some strange leaves growing from the centre fo the flower. This fault is not rare - and we probably pick one or two a week that is like this.

Sometimes we can pick out the fault, but this one will have a hole in it - so we take them home. I think they are good conversation pieces - and still look pretty in a vase.

The Flower Seller

When Miss A (who will be 7 in July) wanted to save for a digital camera and calculated that with pocket money and her normal expenses she'd take a while to save up the required dollars, she hit on having a flower stall. Selling the "seconds" - those flowers deemed not good enough for our florists, and destined to be given away, or thrown out.

She decided to sell them for $3 a bunch. Within a couple of weeks she had her camera, so had no need to continue her flower sales. When I announced I was going to Adelaide at the end of May, she wished to come with me, so her mother suggested that she earn her fare.

The flower stall is back in action. After her first foray into the flower selling, it was decided that she should have to pay the farm $1 a bunch for her flowers, since she did little to prepare them. She baulked at that but in the end reluctantly paid it to the farm.

But she reasoned that she could increase the price, so her flower stall sign now says "$4", and her customers have paid up without a quibble. They'd be paying $30 for the equivalent size bunch in a normal retail outlet.

So she has almost all the fare to Adelaide ($220) and is also working for spending money for her trip.

She is quite a little entrepreneur - but only while she has a goal. After she bought the camera she could not think of anything worth saving for, and even to get her to put money in the bank did not enthuse her. She already has a lot of money in the bank. (Proabably only a couple of hundred dollars.)

Still, she is still only 6 years old.

Autumn Flush

Even though the days are not much cooler, the nights are. We've had no rain - another record breaking lack of rain for April - so the sun shines brightly during the day, the humidity is lower, and the cool nights impress the gerberas.

The buds are prolific and the flowers are growing with long straight stems and perfect flowers.

Our next big order period is leading up to Mother's Day - which is on May 13th- just over a week away. The flowers will be good for this year, provided the weather stays the same.

You'd think under the plastic domes of the hothouse we'd not be bothered too much by the weather - but certainly the temperature and the outside humidity affects the flowers.

It is usually pleasant picking the flowers - we do it by hand "plucking" the flowers from the crown, and if it does rain we don't get we doing it.

But it is time to move on. Decision making time. Now I have to work several days a week, I find it getting a bit hard. We have some interest though in taking it over. We'll see.