“When you share your

REAL story,

Your audience finds themselves in it.

That’s the power of authenticity”

Pop the champagne! Explode the celebration popper thingies! It’s the start of a new year and that means a whole range of new and wonderful small business women to support in 2025.

Come with me on this blog journey, as I aim to build NETWORK and CONNECTION. Each month, I feature a woman in small business within my community with the sole purpose of showing support, building solidarity and sharing stories of passion.

I am so fortunate to be surrounded by incredible small businesses in the South West run by mums in their spare rooms or out in their gardens and they each have a unique story to be told; a BIGGER PICTURE to be discovered.

To kickstart us into 2025, I bring together two of my absolute loves; farming and flowers. Have you ever wondered how gardeners grow abundant, fresh, gorgeous flowers for months on end? What is the secret? Well, if you’re envisaging flower farming to be all about skipping through the gladioli patch with daisies woven through your hair, armloads of dahlias and a glowing sunset behind you, then you’re on the wrong track. Let’s get real here – flower farming is hard, physical labour. It’s hot, sweaty, dirty work that’s hard on your body. You have to deal with the seasons, changes in the weather, cold snaps, dry snaps, too much rain, too little rain and attacks of thrips or grasshoppers. There are huge overheads to consider – equipment, soil, mulch, seeds, bulbs, infrastructure like greenhouses and watering systems and tractors. Don’t forget the compost!

BUT…it seems that once you’ve been bitten by the flower farming bug it’s an obsession, that becomes a passion, that becomes transformative!

For our January feature I am very proud to introduce you to local Koroit flower farmer, wife, mum of two beautiful boys and green thumb…

Brooke Stewart

Meadowbrooke Flower Farm

Tell us about your business and what services you offer.

Meadowbrooke Flower Farm is primarily a wholesale flower farm. From August to May we supply seasonal flowers to local florists & retail stores and freelance wedding florists over the summer and Autumn months. We work closely with our florists to work out what they love and need and we are learning what our farm needs in return.

We have opened up the farm this year for “pick your own days” inviting small groups to the farm to pick their own blooms and fill a vase with dahlia, snapdragons, feverfew and yarrow. Being on the farm is always such a calm and joyful experience for me. I wanted to be able to share it with people.

I am the first to say that I am a farmer not a florist. I have no formal training, but have grown up in beautiful gardens, so I enjoy putting together farm bouquets in order to share our seasonal blooms with locals.

Is there a story behind the name you chose?

My husband and I had been bouncing around names for a while, often trying to incorporate the word ‘meadow’ into it as we wanted to create an English flower meadow on the property. We then learned that there was a creek that ran nearby the property called Murray Brook, but a nearby dairy farm had already adopted the name.

Then one day my husband said “How about Meadowbrooke?”

This combined the locality and our future plans, and by adding the ‘e’, it included my name. We ran it by a few friends and it stuck!

Where does your inspiration come from?

After the birth of our second child, I found an Australian podcast called “Dish the dirt” which interviewed Australian flower farmers, discussing their triumphs and pitfalls and discussing their lives & farms. I was renovating the gardens at our 113 year old Killarney House at the time and started turning my vegetable beds into flower beds.
When we found our baron 6 acre cattle paddock, we had to submit a farm plan, as we are zoned farming, and I immediately started planning our flower rows and figuring out how I could work from home and make the land work for us.

What is your favourite part of your job

Since moving into our dream house on the farm in December, I love being able to wake up and harvest before the kids are awake, before the flies are awake and the sun is too hot. I pull my cart along and fill buckets full of fresh blooms before breakfast.

What do you offer your clients that no one else does?

Our pick your own experiences are something that's not offered locally, and after hosting our first day, I was so nervous sharing our farm especially after a very dry winter but to meet people that loved flowers as much as I do was an absolute joy!
Most florists in our area have to order the bulk of their flowers from the Melbourne flower market. Either the florists drive to Melbourne and back to pick up their flowers, or they are trucked down, often out of water, if they are grown in Australia. Products like roses are often grown overseas and are dipped in chemicals to get through border security. We wanted to be able to sell fresh, local, seasonal flowers to local florists without nasty chemicals.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learnt since starting your business?

We have learnt so much about soil! Learning how and when to “flip” our beds, learning about the process of occultation to speed up the breakdown of weeds and green waste in order to regenerate our soil. The more we look after our land and build our soil the better our flowers produce.

Another thing I’ve learnt is to have multiple sales channels as a safety net. After our first year at Meadowbrooke, I found I had more flowers than customers. I researched sales channels, and made sure I had more contacts that I could sell my blooms to, especially when I had a glut of sunflowers or tulips. Now knowing I can reach out to my florists, I can check if I can get a stall at my local markets. I have retail stores that will sell bunches and then I can sell directly to the public via Facebook and Instagram. Having this little list means that I'm not panicking about flowers going to waste or losing profits.

I really enjoy following Brooke’s Instagram account as she regularly updates what she’s up to on her farm. It’s clear that she is a woman in tune with the weather, the soil, the insects and the ever-growing weeds. But more than that, Brooke is a person who is firmly committed to the principle of growing for her community and providing the people and lives around her with beautiful, locally grown flowers.

Edwina xx

If you are looking for fresh local blooms to fill your vases, and you would like to know more about the Meadowbrooke Flower Farm, or the upcoming dates of her ‘Pick Your Own’ sessions, please give Brooke a follow (and your support) on her social media page…

Instagram: @meadowbrookeflowerfarm

Facebook: Meadowbrooke