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Plot twist | The Little Barn Garden
Plot twist | The Little Barn Garden
Wedding flowers are usually sourced from growers and florists, but Liv Wynne-Lewis decided hers would come from the soil of her parents’ Hawke’s Bay farm. She set her sights on a weedy strip behind a little black barn…
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This story was told with the support of BioRich in Sage Vol. 1
Weddings can take a whole lot of time to prepare for, but setting your sights a year ahead to grow your own bouquets definitely takes the level of commitment up a notch.
It was April 2022 when Liv Wynne-Lewis (pictured below) and her sister, Rosa Glazebrook, set their sights on a weedy strip behind a barn on their parents’ Te Matau-a-Māui Hawke’s Bay farm. The plan was to grow flowers for Liv’s wedding, in March of the following year. “It was the perfect excuse to start a flower garden and a fun project!,” says Liv.
The pair are both creative forces in their own right – Liv an expert baker with a marketing career, and Rosa a talented potter who works in biodiversity. Both love working in the garden, which was one of the inspirations for this project. “Growing my own flowers was also a way to make the wedding day more personal,” Liv explains. “I’d always loved flowers, and any excuse to spend time in the garden felt worth it.”
From the ground up
Liv describes that first season as “slightly overambitious” but a fun challenge. A big undertaking for two sisters who, with the exception of a few Zinnia and Cosmos, had never really grown flowers before. The whānau (family) were on board from the start, which was fortuitous, as it definitely required a team effort to prepare the area.
They created long, straight beds for easy planting and picking, and their immediate focus was to address the soil. With a dad who founded BioRich organic compost (as he wanted a high-quality product to use on his own organic crops), the pair had a head- start in the soil preparation stage. Using BioRich Supersoil – a mix of aged organic garden compost and topsoil, they transformed the patch that was previously weeds and bare earth. “Healthy soil really is the secret to growing good flowers,” Liv says. “Once we fixed that, the flowers have pretty much looked after themselves ever since.”
With fertile soil in place, the focus turned to planting as many varieties of Dahlia as possible. At the time, Liv was based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. She had a glasshouse at home (photo below, supplied), crammed with seedlings that she nurtured until they were ready to plant out. At that stage, they were loaded into the car and driven north to Hawke’s Bay (where Rosa was based) to be added to their garden. In the lead up to the wedding, Rosa was onsite to care for the garden.
Some flowers were chosen for shape and colour, others simply because they’d caught their eye. Dahlias have always been the stars of the show, but the patch also held smaller supporting plants to fill arrangements.
The wedding harvest
In the days before the wedding, the garden became a meeting place, alive with anticipation. After months of planning, planting and nurturing – and remarkably, surviving the wettest summer on record – family andfriends wandered between the rows, snipping stems, filling buckets and chatting. “It was honestly one of the most special parts,” Liv says. “It turned into this really lovely shared moment before the big day.”
The homegrown flowers were mixed with bought ones for the arrangements, and nothing went to waste – the next morning, guests were invited to a “bloom bar” to take leftover stems home to make their own arrangements.
A place to gather
The big day has now passed, but the paddock of blooms continues to evolve – it remains a place Liv and Rosa love. Each season, they add more beds, experiment with new varieties of Dahlia and flowering annuals, and work in more BioRich compost. Matricaria, the cheerful little daisies that “bring so much light and energy,” have become firm favourites, with their yellow-centred white daisy heads bright against the sea of green. Tulips, a recent addition, have added bold colours and a fresh feel. Building out the garden with additional varieties to the vast Dahlia beds means they can extend the flowering season, along with the beauty in the patch.
“It’s no longer a wedding project – it’s now our happy flower place that we’re enjoying with my daughter Margot,” says Liv. And as a continuation of the garden’s original story, flowers are used for friends’ weddings too.
At the far end of the garden, a picnic table now sits surrounded by experimental wildflowers. It’s where family birthdays are held, coffee and cake is shared, and where refreshments appear on summer days. “It’s become our little spot for lazy chats, picnic blankets and afternoon drinks,” Liv says. “Nothing too fancy – just fresh air, flowers and good company. Somehow, time moves a bit slower out there.”
