An update: Rooftop Roses has found its first home in a paddock in Kyneton. It’s just under an hour from our Brunswick East studio and it is a beautiful piece of land, which will provide us with potential to expand. I am saddened that we were not able to find a rooftop – this project was envisioned from the beginning in an urban context. All my initial thinking was focused on Rooftop Roses as a garden within the city.
It is my hope now that we will be able to show proof of concept (at ground level), and then in the years to come, we will meet the right partner who will help us find a city home.
In July, it will be three years since the initial concept came together and I submitted an expression of interest in our first grant round. Three years and still not a seed in the ground. The level of endurance and optimism you need to stay the course is unbelievable.
We signed the lease on what we are now referring to as the farm, in November of last year, and since then have been making plans to begin. It’s been five months of pre-planning before a permit has even been submitted, and my hope is that this week we will have the first permits in.
Sophia Petridis, The Beautiful Bunch GM, and I, signing our Kyneton farm lease in November, 2025.
I’ve been sharing regular updates on our progress through our socials and via Substack. I would like to use this space as a more traditional blog-like format, as was originally intended. This will offer a more unfiltered view of creating this flower farm, of what it takes to bring a project like this one to life, and it remains my hope that it will inspire someone to do the same.