WHEN you see a sign promising “fresh, local flowers”, what do you think of?
For Helen Leighton, it’s very much a literal term.
For her, it means popping out the back with a basket and some secateurs, meandering through her 1.5-hectare garden and snipping off a selection of blooms and foliage.
She will then take the garden-gathered beauties back to her studio and use her skills and attention to detail to create a stunning bespoke bouquet or vase-ready arrangement.
So if you source Riverdale Farm flowers, that’s exactly what you get – flowers from Helen’s incredible and sustainable garden at Kalgan near Albany.
There’s much more to Helen than being an avid gardener – after growing up in Perth she trained and worked as a midwife in the mid-1980s, before marrying Jim and starting a family.
It was during that time that she began to spend more time in the garden, following in her mother’s and grandparent’s footsteps, as she became passionate about not only what was planted, but the overall garden design.
She stepped it up a notch and in 2003, studied garden design at the Inchbald School of Design in London, before establishing her own business, Helen Leighton Garden Design, in 2004.
In the same year, she and Jim moved to Riverdale Farm near Albany with the dream of having a large garden and running some cattle at the 40-hectare property.
Helen’s garden design skills were put to work in her own backyard as she and Jim transformed the area into a thriving garden, which is a perfect combination of native plants and garden flowers.
“We have a large range of native species including but not limited to kangaroo paws, flannel flowers, grevilleas, billy buttons and foliage species for arranging,” Helen said.
“The natives are great over winter and early spring when the garden flowers are not blooming.
“There is a large area dedicated to scented roses, with about 300 David Austin, heritage and hybrid teas, shrubs and a very wide range of perennials and annuals.
“We grow our plants from a mix of cuttings and seed in a dedicated nursery area on the property.
“It’s a team effort, as Jim is an enormous help with all things to do with the garden and our daughter, Abbey, helps out when she has time available as she is also a floral designer.”
While there were many highlights for Helen during her years as a garden designer, after a while she began to feel somewhat disconnected.
“I found Garden Design work took up a large amount of time at the computer which meant less time in the garden,” Helen said.
Thinking back, Helen said the couple may have had a glimpse into their future a few years prior, as she recalls them spending many blissful hours picking flowers from Jim’s family farms on the south coast for use at their own wedding.
In 2013, Helen decided to chase her dream and headed back to London in 2013, this time completing a floral design course at the Zita Elze Design Academy in Kew.
Returning home, she officially moved into floral design in 2014, establishing her business as Riverdale Farm.
Having always enjoyed gathering flowers for display in her own home, the fresh, natural and “just-picked” look became Helen’s signature design.
It’s a design that’s proven to be in big demand, especially with an increased focus from consumers on bloom origin.
“I am inspired by natural landscapes and this look is well-suited to the sort of material I grow,” she said.
“There is strong interest worldwide in loose textured romantic garden style bouquets.
“The garden-gathered approach is gaining momentum in the floral design field as people become more interested in the provenance of their blooms.
“The hallmark is local, seasonal flowers that are sustainably produced for a local market with minimal carbon footprint.
“The benefits to me as a designer is having control, as much as the weather allows; heatwaves, rain and wind spoiling blooms, over the product I like to work with, being able to grow specific colours and varieties for specific events and most importantly being able to work seasonally with an ever-changing palette of material.
“I can grow a much wider range of species than is available in the markets and some varieties don’t transport well and are at their best picked freshly from the garden.”
Riverdale Farm takes on a limited number of weddings and events each year, as well as producing bouquets and arrangements to order, as Helen likes to offer a personal, individual service and a down to earth approach.
The Leightons are hosting their first on-farm workshop later this year and Helen said they hoped to run seasonal workshops each year using their own floral products.
They also open their garden for the Albany Spring Garden Festival to help support the Albany Community Hospice and this year, visitors can get a glimpse of the splendour from 10am-4pm on the weekends of October 21-22 and 28-29.
“It is a lifestyle that gives immense satisfaction and we like to share that with others,” Helen said.
“I love the seasonal shifts throughout the year and the physical exercise that working in the garden offers, as well as the process of growing our deliciously scented flowers from seed, designing and delivering a beautifully crafted homegrown creation.”
Despite some quieter times when it comes to what’s blooming, there is no dormant season, workwise at Riverdale Farm.
Winter has been spent laying all the ground work for the coming seasons, with lots of pruning and spreading of manure and mulch over the garden while in the nursery, many seeds have been sown and plants propagated.
“Spring, summer and autumn is spent deadheading to ensure a succession of blooms for the design work and sowing new crops of seedlings as the season progresses to ensure a continuity of fresh and interesting floral material,” Helen said.
“Most people don’t realise that many flowers available from markets around Australia have been flown in from far-flung places.
“Most roses come from Kenya and Ecuador where labour is relatively inexpensive.
“The roses have been hybridised over many years and consequently are most often devoid of scent.
“This improves their longevity which is necessary when the flowers are picked many days before they actually reach the marketplace.
“Over the past few years I have been lucky enough to participate in workshops in New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom with floral designers who are focussed on using their own product, with flowers sourced from local growers in their area.”
Helen’s passion for floral design is obvious, but it goes well beyond the aesthetic of a pretty flower.
She is determined to continue producing a sustainable and desirable product from her small family enterprise, while doing her part to promote provenance.
“Going forward I want to continue to stay up to date with floral trends and keep researching new varieties of flowers to maintain inspiration,” she said.
“I do hope that people in the region will come to view flowers as something that can be bought from local growers, much the same as food from farmer’s markets has become so popular in recent times.”
