A couple of weeks ago, The Beautiful Bunch girls and I headed to the Museum of Contemporary Art to create a rose garden framed by Australia’s most iconic landmarks. A sparkling Sydney Harbour and the curves of the Opera House were beyond what I ever could have imagined as the backdrop for Rooftop Roses’ first ever floral installation.
To create the rose garden, we sourced flowers from a wholesaler in Melbourne as well as direct from Sydney Flower Market. We had originally planned to purchase only from Sydney the morning of the install, but we were worried we wouldn’t be able to get enough local product. So, we bought just over half of what we needed from Melbourne and headed to Sydney, driving nine hours north up the Hume Highway on a particularly hot autumn weekend.
Prolonged dry months have left the roadside landscape looking thirsty. Highway pitstops revealed scorched leaves and crunchy grass. We stopped regularly for iced coffees. Gundagai was a highlight. We missed the pie shop, but discovered Café Niagara, Australia’s oldest Greek café with much of its 100 plus year-old art deco features still intact.
The flowers we brought from Melbourne travelled tightly packed in buckets of water in the back of our work van. A large piece of orange fabric hung loosely from the back window to shield them from the sun.
When we arrived at our hotel in Potts Point it was early evening. We left the van in a basement carpark that felt considerably cooler than anywhere else, double-checked all the roses were reaching the water and hoped for the best.
The following morning, we woke at 7am to head to the Sydney Flower Market. We were relieved to see that the roses in the van had not only survived the night, but somehow looked fresher and fuller than they had done the previous day.
Crossing the city early morning, the sun gave everything a luminous quality. It felt Sydney was showing us her very best. We arrived at the flower market at 8am. After a brief conversation with security, they waved us in free of charge, and our good fortune continued from there.
Seeing the austere beauty of the market immediately made me feel at home - the unique mix of commerce and community, the chaos of forklifts whizzing past, everyone talking all at once.
Behind the grim veneer of the market - a concrete monolith with white fluorescent lights - is an abundance of natural beauty. Rows of baby pink cluster roses and pillows of lilac hydrangea were sitting gently in buckets on the ground. The most delicate flowers are always closest to the floor. Then, higher up on steel shelves are the hardier varieties, we found giant candlestick banksias, spiky ginger flowers, and lobster-like heliconias.
It was a quieter market day and we arrived later than the other florists, so the growers had plenty of time to chat. Despite our late arrival, there was an abundance of locally-grown roses, and more variety than what we are used to in Melbourne.
Walking around the markets with the girls, arms full of delicate and fragrant blooms, and the beautiful morning light streaming through, I kept thinking of a quote by the artist Ram Singh Urveti – the sun gives birth to life and the moon gives rise to time.
My first trip to Sydney Flower Market could not have been in starker contrast to my first time at Melbourne’s equivalent. The Melbourne Flower Market is located in the outskirts of the city in a sprawling, half-developed industrial precinct. The market itself feels like a small city within the city. Gates open at 3:15am, and the action is well and truly over by the time the sun begins to rise.
Unlike Sydney, it is not open to the public and is for trade only. Its insularity is reflected in the general attitude of the sellers there, many of whom are still coming to terms with women working outside of the home.
Despite its challenges, it was, for some time, the best place in Melbourne to get the best flowers. So, for two years I woke three times a week at 2:30am to arrive at the market when the moon was still high. It was the very start of The Beautiful Bunch, and also a time of turmoil and grief for me personally.
At times, the driving back and forth and even walking through the market buying, felt like a waking, painful dream. Then on other mornings, the solitude of that deep darkness, or the “hour of the wolf” as that time is known in Swedish folklore, would provide a sense of clarity and inspiration that would strangely energise me for the rest of the day.
Whatever my thoughts on Melbourne Flower Market – and I could fill pages on this – it undoubtedly gave me a reason to get out of bed when I very much needed one.
Fast forward to two years later, and the darkness of those mornings foreshadowed a light that came into clear view on our morning in Sydney. In contrast to the gruelling schedule of Melbourne, hours spent working in the dark alone, constant issues with supply - I was able to experience Sydney Flower Market in the sunlight, with an abundance of beautiful roses, and a group of women who were as enthused to be there as I was.
After the market, we took our van, now filled to the roof with roses, to the Museum of Contemporary Art to begin creating “Gifts From The Garden”, our floral installation for the event that evening.
As the piece came together, seeing our work against the backdrop of the Sydney Opera House was another pinch-me moment. However, the highlight of our trip still remained something I could not have dreamed of in the early days – a morning flower market visit in the sunshine with friends.
J x
