Twig & Bloom owner Jeanie Sutherland's sustainable approach to floristry

Jeanie Sutherland has lived in the Matakana area for around 30 years, and for as long as she can remember, has been passionate about growing plants. Happiest when with her family or in the garden, the mother of two studied horticulture and landscape design after leaving school. After spending many years in hospitality and retail in leadership roles, she has recently become the owner of local floral boutique Twig & Bloom.

Did you know imported flowers from Asia and Colombia are often cheaper to buy than New Zealand grown? By growing her own flowers and sourcing locally as much as possible, Matakana’s Jeanie Sutherland is doing her bit to make floristry more sustainable.

Tell us about your town. I love the area. You can walk down the street and you know who you’re walking past. You can stop for a catch-up; it has a welcoming sense of community. There are good people here. My two kids have grown up here and have thrived; my son is an apprentice builder and my daughter is in Year 12 and is excelling at sport and schooling at Mahurangi College.

How did you get into floristry? I have a love of flowers and how they make you feel when you receive or pick them. My earliest memories are of my nana making tussie-mussies from her garden; they always looked so pretty and balanced. As a kid, I would go with Mum to the Blind Institute in Parnell and give out boutonnieres and posies to the old folk – they were so thankful.

I’ve always loved cutting whatever was in the garden and having it on the kitchen bench in a vase, whether it was a selection of natives, a wild climbing rose, or a few daisies. I take cuttings of anything I think I can grow (a treasured book is Plants for Free by one of my tutors at Unitec, Andrew Maloy). For the past few years, I’ve had a small business growing spray-free vegetables and herb seedlings for the Matakana Village Farmers’ Market. I also have a gate stall. When Twig & Bloom came up for sale, I knew it was the right time to take on this opportunity. I am now studying floristry and loving the challenge.

What are some of your favourite flowers and why? I have different favourites throughout the seasons. Many years ago, my daughter picked out a pink mānuka when she was a toddler – the flowers are perfect, intricate and so pretty. Damask roses,they are feminine and their scent is exquisite; and freesias, my father’s favourite, their vibrant colours bringing fresh spring smells into our homes.

What do you enjoy growing at home? I live rurally and have a hectare, so I’ve got a bit of space. I grow a range of heirloom tomatoes over the summer and I’m just about to plant a large number of flowers for pollination alongside my son’s watermelon patch of 150 plants to see if we get a better fruit set. For the business, I’m trialling some dahlias and zinnias and a wide range of flowers for drying. I have two tunnel houses, so I’m always growing something.

Tell us why we need to know about flower miles. Many flowers are imported, especially in the winter months; these flowers travel thousands of kilometres, mostly from Asia and South America. With flowers being so readily available, we get a false sense of what varieties of flowers are available at different times of the year. Essentially, we’ve lost the clear seasonal availability of flowers with the ease and accessibility of importing flowers from around the world. At Twig & Bloom, we source the majority of our flowers and greenery from an amazing local flower farmer in Point Wells and greenery from my property. We know exactly how fresh our bouquets are as we know when the flowers were harvested, taking no more than 10 minutes to arrive in the store, then arranged into a bouquet within a few hours.