Verve

15/09/2021

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01/01/2021

It is my absolute and final pleasure on this profile to introduce you to Euan and Nicola, the new owners of 27 Centre Valley Road and Verve. I couldn’t have hoped for a more perfect outcome... Please join me in welcoming them to Marlborough, and especially at the market on Sunday mornings. These very lovely two come to the flowers with a fresh approach, having consciously chosen the soil and community... Beautiful wishes, guys! My bestest and most humble contribution would be: make compost, always pinch, pick looow, and try not to work too hard! Have fun!! I’m beaming good vibes and lots of love from Africa. 🌸👩🏻‍🌾💚

11/12/2020

Last post before I introduce you to the very lovely folks who’ll be your new hosts here, and hand over/sign off officially...

Exactly when and how or why I became a flower grower, I still don’t quite know. I am humbled by the process, grateful to each and every encounter it made possible - including living in New Zealand for what became a quarter of my existence thus far - and determined to see it all through in some way, shape or form in the country of my bones.

The American philosopher-farmer, Wendell Berry is quoted as saying: To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd.

For me it has always been thus with flowers... We don’t eat them but they can only but come to us via the earth, the soil. The might of the metaphor implied in the sense that flowers nourish us on a deeper or higher level is not lost on me as you can imagine. I’d even venture: that our mental and emotional faculties are stimulated and soothed by beings rooted in and harvested from the earth leads us back to the soil, too. As all of life does. How flowers are grown matters, mightily. In ineffable ways too.

Wendell Berry I think is also on the record with something along the lines that eating is an agricultural act. Perhaps my parting phrase would borrow from this and proclaim that communing with flowers - be it on your kitchen table, the farmers market, your wedding, a loved one’s passing and very much in your own garden - is an agricultural act. It is an ecological one too, and to my mind a psychological necessity.

Thank you, always and forever. For your custom but also for helping me articulate some of these themes over the years by being receptive, warm and kind.

I’ve started posting at if you’d like to stay in touch via Insta.

Next stop New Owners!

Jxx

28/11/2020

Last few days of lasts... including Sweet Peas grown by yours truly, and the tomorrow. Dreamy day spent picking with Liek and Rosa... Missing you .

25/11/2020

Last few days on the farm and with my South Pacific tribe... Thought it appropriate to show off a little in retrospect, courtesy of , , and . So much love and gratitude, Marlborough!

06/11/2020

We’ll be at the féte on Sunday morning, with these in tow!

14/10/2020

Such beautiful feedback from our tribe at every Sunday about these... Anemone c. “Galilee”. Thank you for making Sunday mornings an absolute highlight!

06/10/2020

My dear friend and fellow farmer-florist, Kylie Sargeant of Owen Valley Flowers, is hosting a dreamy day out at Owen River Lodge near Murchison on the 24th of this month! I'll post the Event link next. Kylie is a spirited, high energy flower grower and florist, originally from Aus. She's been a friend and colleague of ours for years and is much admired and loved by the flower grower family in NZ... and she's got much to share, including the stunning surroundings of the Lodge itself and a meal by its head chef using local produce and paired with Neudorf wines. Might see you there! I can't think of a nicer girls day out! Jx

30/09/2020

It’s all happening... in spite of the annus horribilis that 2020’s been, spring still arrived and we’re still farming, joyfully. 🌸🥰🌏🌈💗

28/09/2020

No matter the gale force winds or torrential rain... Thank you for reaching for local, organically grown flowers to mark life’s rites and celebrations and even its bereavements with. I am well aware of how important a role it is, and it’s all the more special during these weeks of preparing to welcome new owners to the farm.

21/09/2020

Our SEASONAL SPRING BOUQUET is live at www.verveflowers.co.nz. Season 2020/21 here we come! Local flowers, grown with integrity... styled with soul.

20/09/2020

Thank you for the market love, Marlborough!!

15/09/2020

You’ll forgive me the sentimentality! Tomorrow is a big day in the story of Verve, 27 Centre Valley Road, me and even Marlborough if I may be so (humbly) bold. So many themes at play here and now... including local produce, polyculture, community, organics and small-scale regenerative farming. So my beautiful sis in SA reminded me of this little snap of Jasper and the flowers and I today, taken I think about two seasons ago. It feels appropriate. So much gratitude... so much love - for all of you beautiful people who followed along over the years especially. More soon! Exciting times!

14/09/2020

Couldn’t have asked for a more perfect start to the season - between the magnificent (and spray-free) Stock and a warm and jolly reception at our first market of Spring 2020. Thank you, thank you! Jx

11/09/2020

Woodies cont.
Quick iPhone image of Laura and my Psysocarpus “Shady Lady” last spring. I don’t know that we intended harvesting for the fleeting flowers (as the leaves are that amazing as they are), but the dusky pink/cream bloom on bronze foliage is what dreams are made up...

09/09/2020

Woodies (aka ornamental shrubs) are what got me into floriculture in the first place... We have invested in this category with foresight and discipline these 10 years. It is a low maintenance/high reward component of a portfolio, and it lifts one’s offering to a next level - be it in design or as a grower for the trade. I’m often asked to reiterate a top ten type list we once presented at a workshop, years ago... Here’s my slightly adjusted faves:

Viburnum opulus sterile
Viburnum trilobum/American Cranberry Bush
Viburnum tinus “Eve Price”
Symphoricarpus
Physocarpus/American Ninebark (“Shady Lady” in NZ)
Syringa/Lilac
Spiraea arguta “Bridal Wreath”
Cotinus/Smokebush
Blueberry branches
Philadelphus (x virginalis is the double-flowered version)
Chaenomeles/Ornamental Quince

06/09/2020

I’m at Selmes with freshly picked Anemones - the first of the season! If you’re in the neighborhood! Jx

05/09/2020

There might very well be flowers here on Centre Valley Road for the foreseeable future, though gift bouquets were a real farmer-florist and a Jeanine thing and may not be on offer once the new owners are settled. Any reason for a one of a kind, generous, spray-free and stunning bouquet of flowers over the coming weeks, do be in touch!