Kelly Perry - 00:00 - You are listening to the Team Flower podcast where we talk about flowers and the people who've dedicated their lives to sharing them with the world. On the podcast today, we have Jardine Hansen an Australian based florist who's moved off the main island to a place called Tasmania. She is sharing her story and how this has affected her business in life with flowers. This episode will be interesting to you if you have or are considering moving your flower business to a new place. You're looking for a wave of personal creative inspiration. You're curious about plants in Tasmania, interested in bees considering visiting Australia or Tasmania, or if you think Jordan and I are pretty fun, just check to see if you're awake. This podcast is brought to you by Team Flower. Team Flower is a community of florists who are loving the world through flowers, whether you're professional farmer, florists, getting started or just love flowers and welcome to the party. If you'd like to know when new podcast episodes are released and receive fun video tutorials and articles, sign up for our pickup pen pal club. It's free. Visit teamflower.org and click on free resources.
Kelly Perry - 01:08 - All right, well welcome Jardine to the Team Flower podcast. It's so great to have you here today.
Jardine Hansen - 01:16 - Thank you so much. It's so nice to be here.
Kelly Perry - 01:17 - Oh, fantastic. Well recently you've moved off the main island of Australia to Tasmania and from what I understand, you have a pretty cool climate there in blue mountains like we do here in Boone and I was wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about your move, why you did it, how it's affected your work with flowers and then maybe what you would tell somebody who is considering moving their flower business because that can be a little bit scary. How are you handling that?
Jardine Hansen - 01:47 - Well, firstly, I suppose our reasons for moving in a funny way there was, there was no real need to move. We were living in the blue mountains about an hour and a half out of Sydney. I'm in a beautiful like little towns throughout national park, so it was, you know, an amazing environment to be in and at a bit of a higher sort of elevation. So we had a really nice cold climate, um, and we really loved it there, but um, we are also sort of haven't lived anywhere else in Australia rather than Sydney and the Blue Mountains and Tasmania just sort of kept coming up and kept calling to us. Um, and yeah, I suppose we moved there like for so many reasons that you get beautiful seasons. They're like in other parts of Australia you sort of miss out on a true winter and you know, even autumn, like in some parts of Australia, it just feels like it's sort of slightly humid summer all year round.
Jardine Hansen - 02:42 - So it's really lovely to be somewhere where, you know, you feel like crisp autumn days and you know, you get bare branches in winter and really see spring, which I probably to northern hemisphere people is just such a, like a normal part of life. But yeah, in lots of parts of Australia you don't get that sort of distinct change. Um, so I feel like I've often. Yeah, yearned that and then um, yeah, the environment in Tasmania, it's just so beautiful. It's this tiny island is only 500,000 people living on it, um, because it's an island, there's a lot of coast and there's a lot of very beautiful rugged coast and beaches and amazing valleys and rivers and mountains and all really close together so you can kind of experienced all of those amazing things within like a 40 minute drive. So it's a really exciting place for us to live.
Jardine Hansen - 03:28 - Um, yeah. And, and it feels like, I don't know, there's a lot of freedom in Tasmania, like this seems like a silly thing to sort of be concerned with. But in Sydney you sort of can't take your dog anywhere and you can't like take it on trails in Tasmania. You can, we can like run along the beach and go swimming with our dog and then the mountain and come back down at where. I don't know, just having those little freedoms taken away just seems to sort of like fence you in a little bit. But yeah, it does. Tazy feels free. Um, and yeah, I feel like that sort of has given me like a lot of space to think about what I want to do because I, yeah, I do really love flowers but I like to sort of explore other things as well. Then yeah, it feels like you can sort of do that here.
Jardine Hansen - 04:12 - Um, so it's been, yeah, an exciting move and I think whenever we've had any sort of big changes, um, don't know, I just think there's no reason not to sort of, not to try like changes really exciting and it's nice to sort of adapt to new new situations. And I think with, with moving my business, I just felt like, you know, you can, I can always go back and I think that's hopefully true of anyone who's thinking about a move. You can always just go back, um, or you can change again and try something else. Like there's no, um, there's nothing really holding you back if you, if you really wanted to do something, something different.
Kelly Perry - 04:46 - Yeah, I think that's a really great perspective to have. And I know I had started my business whenever we were in Virginia and had just kind of got it up and got it going and then Jesse had a job change and so that's what landed us here in North Carolina. And I remember thinking, Oh, I've, you know, we've kind of got this up and going and now it's starting all over again. And I think that if I were, yeah, I think that it's, it can be a little bit intimidating and a little bit like, oh, what will happen. But I just love your openness and your perspective that, you know, there's always an opportunity to make another change needs to happen.
Jardine Hansen - 05:29 - Yeah, definitely.
Kelly Perry - 05:32 - Yeah. Well it sounds like you really love exploring and exploring I think is just, it's time well spent. So tell us a little bit about how you explore this new landscape and then maybe how that's um, if that ties into being an inspiration with flowers. Tell us what are you doing? Are you out there hiking or.
Jardine Hansen - 05:55 - Almost all the time sort of every, every moment we can be outside. We are, but like, um, my boyfriend does a lot of um, extremely long distance trail running. I'm like 100, he's done 100 mile races, like he's running around Mont Mont Blanc. I'm like, he started in France and ran through Italy and Switzerland, like all in the corner of those countries, but still he's like crossed all those borders and run around a giant mountain like through the Alps. Um, anyway, so he's very, very outdoorsy and his sort of dragged me into that. I'm nowhere near that sort of situation. But um, yeah, we do, we do really love. Um, yeah, being outside b walking and hiking and um, we've, we've bought sea kayak so we've been kayaking around and kayaking out to little islands because off. So Tasmania is a small island south of Australia and then off Tasmania there's also quite a few little islands.
Kelly Perry - 06:55 - All kinds of to places to explore.
Jardine Hansen - 06:56 - It's funny because there's some people that live on those smaller islands and then they called Tasmania the main, the big island, the bigger island and the mainland Australia. So yeah, we. And we also do quite a bit of canyoning or I think you guys call it canyoneering. Yeah. And I think just seeing, seeing nature and it's like slightly wilder form is really special to me. Um, you know, so often I think of things like when we're canyoning and you're like, you know, you're going down these dark sort of high wold thing with, with water running through it usually. Um, and you might see like, like a wall of amazing ferns and like a beam of sunlight hitting it and it's just, you know, I don't know, it's just so striking and gorgeous. And I know I can't recreate that in an event necessarily. But I think like, I think about those sorts of things in the way that, yeah, know, like players in nature and, and just, yeah, the different, the different things that you say when, when people haven't been there kind of toying with things too much. So, um, you know, the way you'll see like a bush fire rips through somewhere and then, and then, you know, a few years later the way that the Bush tries to recover. And I'm just the interesting things and the ways that nature, yeah, it sort of moves and grows. I don't know, it's just, it's really inspiring to sort of say that. And I, I hope it kind of is seen in my work a little bit. Um, it's, yeah, I guess it's the things that I really appreciate it.
Kelly Perry - 08:26 - Yeah, absolutely. I think that it's so interesting. I mean nature really does tell a story and it emits so many feelings and there are so many ways how I think about how plants are messengers and they can tell so many things that they can almost express things that maybe happened to us personally that we can't quite put words to. Like as you were describing, you know, that bush fire that went through and how the plant is, you know, coming back and itself, things like that, you know, that happens to us as people sometimes. Sometimes there's hurt and a fire that friends through there and you, you have to recover. So I think it's, that's one of the things about exploring nature that I think is really inspiring to me. Whenever I see the ferns coming up from the woods back here in and seeing just like their posture, like the way that they're standing, the way that they always rise up and that they, they're, they're so strong and fragile at the same time, which I know sounds a little bit cliche, but there's something so captivating about it and yeah, just like you were mentioning the light and that's something that we don't think about a lot of times as we're designing events or things like that.
Kelly Perry - 09:40 - But, but really like what if we did like what if we did start thinking about, you know, how light was playing in the venue at different times of days or you know, recreating some beams of light to really give more mood or feeling. Sometimes in weddings, you know, you go into the venue and if, if it's, you know, outside or a tent or whatever, it can just feel like very dark after the sun goes down and the flowers are sort of just hidden in the shroud of hidden in a shroud of darkness and less, you know, the pin lighting and different things are part of that. So I think that's all very important to consider and it's so interesting too how the brain works and you're constantly gathering information and it returns to you at just the time that you need it. So I really do think that that exploring is so important for us as creative people who love, you know, love to share beauty and things with other people, for us ourselves to be feeding pieces of our, of our souls as well.
Jardine Hansen - 10:44 - Absolutely. Really lovely like peace that just sort of settles over you when you're out in nature. I remember when we used to live in Sydney before we lived in these sorts of areas and we used to go up and visit them. I just that like I'd feel that so like viscerally, like a, almost like my whole body, but particularly in my lungs and I don't think it was just that the air was clean, it's just a real sort of. Yeah, like a, just a nice of peacefulness that settles over you when you're out. Just amongst trees. It's a special feeling.
Kelly Perry - 11:15 - Absolutely. There's a little spot back here in the woods. I call it my, my secret spot. I've never seen it and it's a little trail system. I've never really seen anybody else back there, but that's, that's where I'll go if you know, if I do feel a little bit unsettled or something like that. So my little spot where I go and I sit on the sit on the bench and like you're describing there is something about just the peaceful nature of it that you really can't, you know, it's, it's hard to capture that in another, in another special thing. Um, well let's talk a little bit about the plants that are available to you now that you've moved. Have you made any new like native plant discoveries that you're really excited about incorporating into some of your floral work?
Jardine Hansen - 12:02 - I did. Maybe not into my work just yet, but I have like when we just posted, when we first moved there was the native warthogs which are really stunning. So our mainland warthogs are quite big and bold and you know, they're sort of, maybe they're like two fist size. Um, and they, they're about two meters high. Sorry, I'm not really good at converting. But hopefully everyone understands.
Kelly Perry - 12:02 - A little bit taller than you.
Jardine Hansen - 12:35 - Bold and bright and deep deep reds and I'm in Tasmania, Monza based sort of slightly shy, a shrubby ones and they're quite small and delicate. Um, so it was really exciting to see those, but I kind of feel like they belong there and I, I never really like cutting anything from any negative sort of things. Like I think they just, they've needed to stay in there, they need this. But I'm very excited about. I'm the only, and this is again, is probably not that exciting for northern hemisphere people, but for us in Australia we don't have any, we only have one native deciduous tree, um, and so, and it's down in Tazi and it's a really low growing beech, like a native beach and it's like people call it a tangle foot because it's like a low kind of ground cover that you can get tangled him, but again it grows in really inhospitable places like on the side of mountains and in sort of quite rough and rocky terrain.
Jardine Hansen - 13:32 - So I'm really excited about seeing that change because mostly like our, our sort of you could have as far as, you know, there's sort of that soft, beautiful sagey green right the year through and they never really changed. So yeah, I'm pretty excited about seeing that, that we're just going into autumn now. Um, so in about a month they're supposed to start coloring. Um, and yeah, I think like it's all sort of, you know, dark black rock and then needs low growing beech trees just sort of in the. Just off into the distance. Yeah. So I'm excited about seeing those, but non native trees, like there's lots of plants rather Tasmania. It's a cold climate, so there's lots of opportunity to grow beautiful things. There's a lot of apple orchards, Tasmania, it's actually known as the apple isle because they grew, they grew in like the 1850, I think 1830 1850s. They started planting out a lot of orchards there and shipping them all over the world because it was before they figured out how to like wax apples and to preserve them, it was the only way to sort of get apples growing in other parts of the world and have an apples year round. So yeah, it's quite funny. This tiny little island at the bottom of Australia exporting apples all over the world.
Jardine Hansen - 14:49 - It's quite a surreal thing, but the valleys are still full of old apple trees and some of the archers are still operating. Um, so yeah, it's, it's really nice to see that. And it's just every cold climate thing that I've ever loved just seems to be growing in everyone's backyard. It's really, it's really exciting. Yeah. And people seem to really love, love their gardens, like there's a lot of um, there's a lot of people growing, like there's just a Tasmanians are really exciting people. Yeah, just everyone seems to have like a little orchard in their backyard and have a little veggie patch going. Um, and about 50 percent of the people that we've met, um, seem to like maybe their beekeepers and they go out and catch wild bees on the weekends. Like that's their weekend activity. So catching wild swarms of bees. Like it's, it's A. Yeah. Well just talk about it like it's totally normal and normal thing to do.
Kelly Perry - 14:49 - I wouldn't be nearby while a bee catching operation is happening.
Jardine Hansen - 15:52 - Yeah, it does sound a little intimidating but apparently it's like they went a hive is super productive and the population kind of explodes at one point. Like the beads just know they can't, they can't sort of keep growing bigger. So they just split in half the swarms. So one half or just stay and the other half just goes. Um, and then they'll sort of find a branch. Usually they'll just go and sort of swarm on. And then little like a hive finding bees will go out and try and find a high for them to move into. So if you can find a swarm that's just left and usually they'll stay for about two days on a branch and they really, really loud. Um, then you can just put like a hive underneath, like at the bottom of the tray. Yeah. And then people like through throw sticks at the branch to shake it, the shake, the bees lose and then they just kind of go into the hype ideally. But it doesn't always happen as smoothly as that. But yeah, I'm pretty excited about seeing it happen. And it's funny, there's like a network of people you know, like there's these numbers that you can call if you have a hive in your house or like in your backyard, you can call these like these people and they'll just come and get them.
Kelly Perry - 17:00 - I just saw this on facebook of all places. There was a little notice out there that was showing a swarm that had moved onto like children's playground equipment or something. And they said if you ever see something like this happen, they were describing what you're saying, how they split and they move and they're kind of waiting. Um, but yeah, that people will come and collect them and not do anything to harm them because the bees here, at least we are running into a problem. Yeah. It save the bees. Yeah, absolutely. So anyway, that's really interesting and I'm sure that that's, you know, that process of them collecting and maybe helping to even preserve, preserve the bees a bit is, is a really important thing. And they're so needed for all of those apple trees. Absolutely. We need them for that. We them for all of the food and pollination and flowers and things.
Kelly Perry - 17:55 - Well here in Boone we are the Christmas tree place so we don't export the know, export them all over the world. But um, you know, a lot of, a lot of times whenever, you know, you might go out to get Christmas trees that are at sort of major, um, major places, like a hardware store, things like that. A lot of times they'll be coming from farms that are up here, so that was one of the fun things, you know, Christmas time, everybody's tried driving around with them on the top of their cars and see them going out on semis by the thousands. Just tons and tons of Christmas trees. So that's a fun time. That's a fun time here as well. Well, tell me a little bit, are you going to grow or do you have a little plot where you can just even a small raised bed, is there anything that you're going to try to experiment with? I know you're headed into fall, but gonna overwinter some things.
Jardine Hansen - 18:49 - Well, our winter. We don't really get much snow. Like occasionally they'll snow so it doesn't get too cold. So you like, we're pretty lucky here. Nothing really seemed like I. Yeah, I don't really have experience with growing anything like, or worrying about things like over wintering things. We tend to just leave, leave everything in the ground and it just does its thing, but where we're currently renting and I have a really good vegetable patch going, which I'm very excited about. Um, and we have beautiful, there was already some mulberry trees and Black Cherry trees and apricots and things, so we were really enjoying those three summer, um, but we're actually looking at buying some land probably in the Huon Valley, which is the apple, apple growing sort of area. Um, because yeah, we would like to start growing. I'm probably more, more perennials than anything, but um, yeah, it really, I'd really love to have a little, a little orchard, a little mix of sort of stone fruits would be really exciting and um, gosh, yeah, you can just, you really can just grow anything in Tasmania, anything except tropical flowers, which I don't really adore anyway. So, um, yeah, it's um, there are lots of plans and dreams moment, but um, nothing sort of concrete we need to find the land first.
Kelly Perry - 19:57 - Yeah, absolutely. That sounds similar to what's going on here where whenever we moved to Boone, we only had a one day to find a place to live with, with how all of the timing of everything was, was it sort of shaking out. But as the first place that I walked into it just very much felt like home. And um, we, we've decided that we really liked it. So we've, we've never looked for another house we've just been renting this one, but I, um, I have to smile because I really did want to, to grow some things and there just like large overgrown trees in the front yard that were kind of dying. And so I asked the landlord, you know, what it would it be possible to, you know, would it be okay if I took those two trees out, you know, things like that. Um, and then I put in four little raised beds in the back so that I just do like annual flowers, little kind of cutting patch, but lots of perennials in the front yard from past events where I've needed to. I need this little extra bit of some things that I've picked up from the, uh, picked up from the landscaping store. But it's, it's so funny because as you know, the garden, you know, the garden of a florist because you only have like one plant everything. It's very hodgepodge. Right? That's it right there,
Jardine Hansen - 21:18 - I love that because that's what I do everywhere, but I also, I just, when we, when we get out land, I'm just, I'm like, I have to avoid that, I have to avoid that and I know I'm not going to, but I just, I have like, you know, the dreams of having like a beautiful, beautifully landscaped places sort of flow seamlessly, but I know I'm just going to make a, like a mishmash. I'm just going to want a little bit of everything I've decided.
Kelly Perry - 21:44 - I've decided that the way I can kind of bring all of this together is to like just be scattering like self seeders throughout the garden so that it all sort of know a little bit of a flow. So anyway, we'll see how it, we'll see how it goes. But it was so funny because our landlord stopped by last summer and I opened up the front door and she looked in, her eyes were so big and she said it's beautiful, it's beautiful. And um, well it certainly was a lot prettier than the big overgrown that were there. But I thought that was, that was. So that was a big compliment. I thought. Sweet. And so anyway. Um, well I was wondering if, uh, any of our listeners listen to this and that. Oh, I want to come to visit Tasmania. I was wondering if there was anything that you would recommend that someone who loves flowers would do if they traveled to Tasmania?
Jardine Hansen - 22:37 - Well, we haven't, we actually haven't had much of a chance to visit sort of open gardens and things, but there are a couple of autumn or fall guns and at the end of this month. So I'm very excited about that. Um, uh, there are like amazing national parks to visit the Huon Valley, which I've mentioned. There's all of the. Yeah, apples and cherry trees. I'm just sort of sprawling throughout the valley. Um, so that's always lovely to visit and this beautiful restaurant restaurants sort of nestled in amongst the wineries and the, and the orchards and things. Um, and then further north there are amazing lavender and poppy farms. The puppy farms are actually grown for opium. So you're not actually allowed to stop there. Like if you could just move, just move slow. It's really funny. He wants to jump out and take photos with the puppies, but they behind high fences and there's surveillance cameras everywhere. And if you stop for too long, like security or police will come out and move you along. It's so funny because it's like, oh, but I just love flowers. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to like have this job, heroin, whatever,
Kelly Perry - 23:46 - Whatever it is you make out of that.
Jardine Hansen - 23:47 - Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. They're those big, beautiful, juicy one. So, um, so that's quite funny. But yeah, it's a funny, funny actually. There's no central market in Tasmania
Kelly Perry - 23:57 - I was going to ask you that, how you, how you plan to source your flowers are,
Jardine Hansen - 24:03 - it's a bit hard actually. It's a funny thing where everything grows so beautifully, but there's no market. And then grow is like this an amazing peony grower that I, um, I, I did a wedding down here in December, um, and went and visited his phone. Oh my gosh, she was just the most amazing. Is Richard Western. His farm is just stunning. It's north of Hobart. Um, and he has so many beautiful varieties and um, I, I, I feel like I just went there to pick up peonies, but I felt like I learned more from him about peonies than I've ever known, like in my years of working with them, like he, um, I didn't realize that peony seeds are edible and apparently their tastes quite peppery, so he collects the seeds at the end of the end of the season and he also disbarred so that he gets, you know, one really big beautiful bloom. And then the buds are also edible. So you pickles them and sends them to like high end restaurants in Hobart.
Jardine Hansen - 25:01 - It's just, it's so cool. Um, so yeah, I've, I've picked up from direct from farms, which is really fun. And then, oh, there's this incredible woman called Lisa Kingston who, um, who else bought flowers from a couple of times. She's further south from Hobart, but she, her family, her parents started the farm. Um, her mom is Swiss and she built this. She and her dad had built this sort of, um, like a, it almost looks like a Swiss chalet on this. Beautiful sloping land where you can see the water from the land and it's um, she sort of made this gorgeous cold climate garden that's really evocative of her home and it's, you know, there's lots of amazing geraniums and I don't know, Swiss things, lots of wild flowers. It's really gorgeous and rambling and lots of fruit trees and then the farm kind of just really organically spread out from the house.
Jardine Hansen - 25:54 - And so it's, it's still a very orderly, functional farm, but it's um, I feel like it's, it's how you always wish a flower farm would be, like, it's really romantic and it just sort of flows beautifully and it feels a bit more like a garden, like a, like an exquisite productive garden rather than like a flower farm where everything's super orderly and everything is in rows. And, you know, I'm like, yeah, I just feel like it's, it's, it's really beautiful. So I've been, um, I have her to buy flowers from um, which is really nice. Uh, but oh yeah, sorry, back to Tasmania.
Jardine Hansen - 25:54 - There are just so many like walks and hikes to do in Tasmania, you know, beautiful beaches that are so like there's hardly anyone on the beaches. It's crazy like in, in Sydney, you know, you can like, they'll take you an hour in traffic to get to the beach and then it might take you that long to find a park and then you go there and there's just so many people and of course, because it's such a beautiful thing, like you want people to enjoy it, but yeah, you go to Tasmania and they might be like one person on a, like a seven mile beach. Then you just, yeah, that's really special. Um, and there's also the gallery, which is really amazing. It's the museum of old and new art I'm in Hobart and you can catch the ferry to it and it's um, oh gosh, it's the most beautiful museum. It's on an old vineyard. So there's a vineyard still there. There's a beautiful restaurant there and they built the museum sort of down into the ground. So they excavated through like millions of years of sandstone. So it feels like it's almost worth going just to look at the architecture of the building, like it's just so beautiful. Um, and then yeah, he has lots of like an amazing collection of beautiful, beautiful, odd. Um, yeah, lots of things to do in Tasmania.
Kelly Perry - 27:43 - Yeah. Well let's chat real quick about your work with flowers in your arrangements and those types of things. Um, your instagram feed is so lovely and if you're listening and you haven't hopped on there to see all the pretty things that Jardine posts you absolutely should. What most commonly, where's the starting place for you with an arrangement? What are your, what's going through your head? Do you start with a particular flower color or what inspires you to get going on something on a design?
Jardine Hansen - 28:17 - I guess it's always dictated by the seasons, but I think that I always like to start with some sort of, um, like frame, like some sort of structure usually like, like if it's spring, like a blossoming branch, I think just sits, sits the shape so nicely. I find it's really hard to, like if you don't have something sort of sweeping and wild, I often find it's quite difficult to sort of arrange into that, if that makes sense. So I usually will start with my sort of wild, wild shape that I want to do. Um, and I often like to make like a lazy L I started to notice is like my favorite and my favorite sort of like a falling back L a and yeah. And just sort of sort of feeling the highs and lows from that. Um, yeah, that sort of tends to be how I do it.
Kelly Perry - 29:06 - Very nice. Have you been reaching flowers for a long time? How did you get interested in doing that?
Jardine Hansen - 29:10 - Well, I was, I was. Oh Gosh. I fell in love with, with gardens more than anything with my Nan. My Nan had a cold climate garden in barrel, which is about an hour and a half south of Sydney. Um, and she just had the greatest thumb in the world. Like anything, anything you, you know, she could just grow absolutely anything. It was really exciting. Um, and she just had such reverence for nature and um, when I was really tiny she used to sort of take me around the garden and teach me all the names and I'd horribly mispronounce them and just be really excited about learning about them all and just watching things grow was. Yeah, it was always really exciting. Um, and then I sort of not forgot about that, but I just moved away from sort of playing in the garden I think um, and you know, went through school and you had to do some other, like pursue some other sort of. So
Kelly Perry - 30:05 - A lot of people feel that way.
Jardine Hansen - 30:07 - I don't know any flowers who've been just wanted to be a florist and then became a florist. Like I feel like so many people. Yeah, it's sort of they try something else and then they realized they're just drawn back to it. Yeah. So I studied nutrition and sports science at Uni and I did, it was a double degree. I did manage to get through three and a half years of five year degree. Um, and then just sort of dropped out and really just fell back into flowers by chance and um, worked in the little shop for about, this was probably about five years ago and worked in a little shop for about a year and a half and then started my business and it, I don't know, it's still quite baffling that like how it all happened, but it just, just kind of did. I just, I actually, I meant I was lucky enough to um, assist with Sara Nicolette from little flower school
Kelly Perry - 31:00 - I remember when that happened.
Jardine Hansen - 31:03 - And I remember when I found out they were coming here, I was so excited and I emailed them and asked if they'd like to borrow. It wasn't even my van, it was my dad's van and I was like, would you like to borrow it while you're here? And then I thought, oh, maybe I'll just get to meet them when I like hand over the keys and that'll be really exciting. And then they asked me if I, you know, if I knew anyone who wanted to assist for the week and come to flower farms with them and I was like completely overjoyed and jumping around the house and you know, like, yes, me, me, me. Yeah. And then I just had a really fun week with them and learned so much and just, yeah, I think they're just brave New Yorker, like just do it kind of attitude and just made me like, yeah, they were just like, why not just just try, just try to start a business and if it doesn't work, just like whatever.
Jardine Hansen - 31:48 - And I was like, oh, okay. Because in Australia it feels like there's a lot of, like this sort of thought of, oh, like 80 percent of small businesses fail within the first one point five years or whatever. And there's a lot of negativity and a lot of like this so many overheads. And I don't know, it just seems like an impossibility, but they were just like, oh no, you just, just start, just start however you can. I was like, oh, so yeah, I sort of just did, I think probably with the. Yeah, doing like friend's wedding and then a friend of a friend's wedding and then yeah, I think instagram was very helpful, um, in sort of getting the word out that I was doing flowers and. Yeah. So I have a lot, a lot to owe to those women.
Kelly Perry - 32:24 - Yeah. I feel the same way. And in so many people, I mean they really have been an important leaders in the industry, not only in, in style, but I also also just think with this courage that they emit. I mean that was one of the first places that I went and that's the, after I went to one of those workshops I knew that I had found what I would do for the rest of my life. And I remember Sarah looking at me and saying, you know, just go do it. Like just, just go make the website and it's not that hard, but you know, like, just go do it. So, um, sometimes we just need that little, that little kick in, that little nudge and that little I believe that you can do this and it's very meaningful and I so appreciate, so appreciate them and uh, and just how they've been willing to step out there and encourage so many people to pursue their dreams. It's really important. So fantastic. I will, I've loved hearing your story and all of the things that you're up to in Tasmania. I know that our listeners have as well. I was wondering if there's anything else that you'd like to share with them before we sign off today.
Jardine Hansen - 33:37 - Oh well, I'm going to start doing some workshops in Tasmania actually, which details are yet to sort of be coming, but I'll be announcing that I'm through my instagram and hopefully if not autumn on them, we'll definitely start doing sort of spring ones, which should be really fun.
Kelly Perry - 33:54 - Okay. So spring time, your time, fall time. Our time.
Jardine Hansen - 33:58 - Right. It's very confusing.
Kelly Perry - 34:02 - Well, it's one of those things where it's, um, I guess summertime here when it's wintertime there. So whenever it's wintertime here would be a good time for um, and people on this side of the world to pop over there and to get a little bit of a breath of fresh air.
Jardine Hansen - 34:16 - That's actually for the last couple of years we weren't doing it this year because we're excited about staying in Tasmania. But um, for the last five years we've taken winter off and gone to the northern hemisphere and it's just such a nice. I mean, it's fun because you're escaping winter and it's just so beautiful. You get two springs, like it just seems really, really magical.
Kelly Perry - 34:36 - No, that's so great. Well, is there one place that you've been, that you want to share about real quick? Was just really fantastic for some.
Jardine Hansen - 34:46 - Yes. Um, so it's probably a good time of year because you've got about a month to get yourself there. Of the shriner's Iris. I'm from Salem, Oregon. Oh my gosh. I went there last year, but I'm Sara Nicolette, we're teaching a class day with another wonderful woman, Helen dealtree who does incredible. She's a textile designer and does beautiful work, um, with like eggs and paint. And we sort of did a, like an iris study, like painting, trying, trying very hard to capture that. Um, and yeah, and I had a beautiful day arranging there, but you can just also go and visit the farm. They have an open garden, it's about 10 acres and it is the most breathtaking place in the world. It's just, they're the biggest exporters of, um, irises in the northern hemisphere and they just, I think it's about or four generations
Jardine Hansen - 35:39 - Now that are in there and just feels like rainbow fields of the virus as far as the eye can see. And it may seem like a giant allium and columbines like I correlated role growing through them and I'm Lupin and it's just, it's absolutely breathtaking. Yeah. I think the peak is about, I think the second week in May, maybe.
Kelly Perry - 36:05 - Yes, exactly. I have heard about the farm and I've seen, you know, Sara Nicolette classes that they have out there and it continues to go back with those because I've heard so many great things.
Jardine Hansen - 36:20 - She said that she was just going to go every year no matter what. So.
Kelly Perry - 36:24 - Okay, good, good. I hope actually I was on my little wishlist to be able to get out there last year and that would've been so cool if I would've gotten to meet yet, but it just, it didn't work out and this year we'll be in Scotland over that period of time, which will be very fun as well, but that is on my bucket list of places that I would love to go next year. I think we should.
Kelly Perry - 36:53 - I think we can make a database. We can invite everyone to come along to join us for that. Sounds good. Well, it's been lovely chatting with you here today.
Jardine Hansen - 36:53 - Thank you.
Kelly Perry - 37:04 - So great to have you and thank you all who have been listening with us today. It's been great to have you here and we'll see you next time on the Team Flower podcast.
Jardine Hansen - 37:14 - Thank you. Bye
Kelly Perry - 37:16 - Bye. This podcast is brought to you by team. Flower. Flower is an online learning community focused on educating, connecting and empowering flower lovers worldwide. Whether you're a professional farmer or florist getting started or just love flowers, welcome to the party. If you'd like to know when new podcast episodes are released and receive fun video tutorials and articles, sign up for our pen pal club. It's free. Visit teamflower.org and click on free resources.