Jo Ensor is blending family life, heritage and a love of horticulture as she transforms part of her Marlborough farm into a thriving cut flower garden — and builds her business, Tyntesfield Blooms.
Located on the family’s fourth-generation farm on Tyntesfield Road in the Waihopai Valley near Blenheim, Jo Ensor and her husband Tim are raising their three young children — Maisey (5), Lucy (nearly 4) and Alex (2). Alongside family life, Jo also runs Tyntesfield Blooms, a small-scale flower growing business.
For Jo, gardening is more than a hobby — it’s part of a family legacy connected to the land she calls home. Now living in one of the farm’s original homesteads, passed down from her in-laws, Jo has begun adding her own layer to the property’s story. Jo now has both the space and opportunity to expand her vision for a productive cut flower garden, adding her own touch to a place with deep family roots.
Jo’s journey into flower growing is grounded in a lifetime of working with the land. With a background in Agricultural Science from Lincoln University, she built a career advising farmers and working across grain trading and arable seed production. “I’ve always had a farming and hands-on background,” she explains, recalling her six years as a Farmlands field rep, where she worked closely with farmers to help maximise their crop and animal returns.
For Jo, the inspiration to start growing cut flowers came from a simple love of having fresh blooms around the house. “They bring so much joy, and remind you to stop and enjoy the small things,” she says. What started as a personal pleasure soon grew into something much bigger in both scale and purpose.
“I was getting a bit restless at home with the kids and wanted to do something for myself but wasn’t ready to go back to work, so thought I’d give growing flowers myself a crack!” she says. Her first season saw a few hundred sunflowers take root, and from there things snowballed. “I started growing so many new flowers I’ve never grown before,” Jo says.
It’s also become a family affair, with her children joining in at every stage — whether it be assisting with sowing seeds and watering seedlings, to cutting flowers for bouquets. “You can see the pride in their faces when they bring in a bunch they picked themselves for their kindy and school teachers,” Jo says. “Doing the cut flower gig is lots of fun to include the children in.”
Gardening, in Jo’s eyes, is as much about building family memories as it is about growing beautiful blooms. Her children are a constant part of the process, and she loves seeing them find their own joy and creativity outdoors. “We let them run wild (ish) with the scissors and cut their own flowers,” Jo says. “It’s all about making it fun and letting their own creativity blossom.”
The family also embraces the change of seasons, especially autumn, when the property’s many established trees provide nature’s own treasures. “The kids love collecting all the acorns and chestnuts and making big piles of them,” Jo says. Simple, timeless rituals that tie them even closer to the land they love.
Ask Jo to name her favourite flowers and the list grows quickly, though one flower always leads the way. “Sunflowers are still my number one,” she says. “They’re quick growing, bring so much joy and last for weeks in a vase if picked at the right stage.” She’s particularly fond of the plum and white varieties, though she admits they can be space-hungry, as they aren’t good cut-and-come-again flowers.
Zinnias are another favourite for their range of colours and their ability to keep blooming all summer long. “I’ll definitely be planting more next season,” she says. Jo also has big plans for her hydrangeas, having planted what she calls a “secret hydrangea garden” that she’s looking forward to seeing flourish over the coming years.
When asked to narrow things down to just three flowers for a bouquet, Jo says it all depends on the season. In summer, she leans toward sunflowers, delphiniums (especially the smaller hybrid varieties) and dahlias (with a soft spot for zinnias too). Come spring, her picks are ranunculus, snapdragons and poppies.
Looking back on her journey so far, Jo is the first to admit that establishing her garden has been a steep learning curve that has been full of experiments, small wins and a few surprises along the way. “I am very much a trial and error gardener,” she says. “I have a plan, execute it and hope for the best!” Thankfully, her husband Tim is often the voice of reason when things get a little ambitious. “There have been a few instances where he’s come back from a day on the farm and thought, what the heck has she done now,” Jo laughs. “But it mostly all works out in the end, and I couldn’t have done all this without him.”
One of the biggest lessons Jo keeps coming back to is not to take on too much at once. A constant reminder in the midst of balancing gardening, a growing business and young children. “The juggle is exhausting,” she says. “It’s about finding the right balance and not overdoing it, so it stays a joy rather than turning into a chore.”
Her advice to other gardeners is simple: feed your plants well and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Jo relies on plenty of aged animal manure from the farm, which she says really pays off, and she’s grateful to be part of Marlborough’s strong gardening community. “I’ve made lots of new friends, and it’s great to bounce ideas around,” she says. “Rachel Gray from Gray Floral has been a godsend. She gets lots of questions thrown at her and grows amazing plants and seedlings, which have helped me get my cut flower garden established.”
So, the home of Tyntesfield Blooms is much more than just flowers — it’s a place where family, community and creativity grow side by side, one season at a time.
