Finding my place on the station, among the flowers

I loved country life. I grew up five kilometres outside my hometown in New South Wales and my childhood consisted of a few cows, poddy lambs, chickens, dogs, ducks, a horse and even a stray cat I managed to smuggle home.

I had the best of both worlds, but I cherished leaving the town limits to visit our family friends' farm.

When the job opportunity came up in Mount Isa in 2015 I jumped, I had never travelled further north than a family holiday to Brisbane and when I arrived I fell in love.

And I don't mean with my husband... I fell in love with the landscape. I felt like I had just stepped into a wild western film, the ones I used to watch with my grandfather after school.

It was harsh, rugged and beautiful. So it was kind of fitting that when I met my husband that everything just seemed to gel together.

I didn't know his family owned property around Mount Isa when we met, and it wasn't until 2017 that we moved to Rosebud Station. It was here we set down roots and welcomed our first child in 2018.

I spent the next six years surviving motherhood, and getting lost in the cuddles and soiled nappies.

I wanted to be more involved with the workings of the station, I wanted to be outside and contributing to the family business, but with three kids hanging off me it seemed impossible.

I wanted to be outside but I couldn't be in the yards drafting, I couldn't get on a horse to tail weaners, I couldn't go out fencing and I am no good at bookwork; so I was confined to the house in the 'mummysphere'.

As many mothers will agree, you become so involved in growing and shaping your babies you lose yourself and it wasn't until 2023 that I found myself again.

As my youngest turned one, I felt myself finally come up for air, as I tried try to figure out who I was and where I fit into station life.

I stumbled across an Instagram page of a flower farmer in the states. I fell in love with her page, bought all three of her books and it ignited a fire in my belly that I've never had before.

I convinced my husband to help me turn an "under-utilised space" (see what I did there) of the goat yard into my trial cut flower garden.

I spent 2023 testing and growing different flower varieties, learning about germination, transplanting, best cutting practices, succession planting and taking lots and lots of notes.

Our climate is so different, we are on the edge of tropical and arid growing zones. Flowers that are typically grown in spring in "prime growing areas" we grew through winter; so it has been a massive learning experience.

I started arranging bouquets and delivering to Mount Isa and have received interest from local florists and event businesses wanting to purchase our flowers.

As someone who hated being dragged around Bunnings by my mum, I never thought I would find my passion in gardening, let alone starting a business in it.

We've made the decision to expand the garden to a more permanent space in 2024, as we start to provide seasonal flowers to our neighbouring outback communities.

You can follow along at Rosebud Station Flowers.

- Talk of the Town is a weekly opinion piece written by ACM journalists. The thoughts expressed are their own.