Big plans and an overdue catch up

Hello,

It’s been such a long time since I wrote to you! I hope you are well and enjoying this time in the middle of the year. I always see midyear as a new beginning, a good time for fresh ideas, almost a second chance at a new year without the hectic time the new year comes with.

I decided to write today for two main reasons. Firstly, it’s been almost a year since I have done so, and secondly it has been a year since we re-launched The Fox and Dingo here in Brisbane (after a little break following our move from the UK). I want to share with you what I’ve been up to in business and in life and share what my focus will be in this second half of the year. I have new goals and fresh plans to diversify The Fox and Dingo and I’m excited to share this with you, but first let me quickly catch you up on they last 12 months.

Business has been slow. I’ve attended one market last year, ran a lovely private workshop in my home, flowered one wedding in December, sold a small number of arrangements for Valentines Day, flowered a gorgeous event and booked three more weddings. Behind the scenes, I have continued to create content for Instagram, spent time growing a small amount of cut flowers in our backyard and learned a lot about our new climate and growing conditions a long the way. If I’m honest, I find myself somewhat disappointed with the growth (or lack of) of The Fox and Dingo since moving to Australia. I have been reminding myself that we have really started again from scratch, and it really has been a tough year for both David and myself.

Last October, David snapped his Achilles tendon! It’s a horrible injury that required surgery and a long slow recovery. A week before Christmas we lost our beautiful dog Finn to a disease that took him far too early in his life. We have grieved a lot for our boy and his absence has been a big adjustment. Something I have not shared until recently is that I have been suffering for the past 3 years with extreme pain and very heavy periods due to a large fibroid growing in my uterus. The last year it had got particularly difficult to manage and I was spending a lot of time in bed with quite strong pain medication. I’m glad to tell you I had a hysterectomy 7 weeks ago and I cannot begin to explain how relieved I am that its essentially all over. In a few short weeks I expect to be completely recovered and I’m already feeling better than I have in a long time.

Through all these difficulties, gardening and growing flowers from seed has grounded me. As always, the seasonal rhythm of sowing and growing has kept my mental health balanced. I have never been more grateful for the knowledge to grow than this past year. When I came home from the hospital the first few weeks of my recovery all I could do was slowly walk around the back yard and look at the flowers, which really did take my mind off my physical pain. It was nice to stop and appreciate the joy in all my hard work.

There has also been a lot of good in the past year. I have worked hard on continuing to develop my floristry skills and connected with a lovely network of likeminded gardeners, growers and florists online here in Australia. We are very much enjoying life here in Brisbane, especially trips to the beach, and beautiful bush walks. We have made some great friends which has been so nice. Its always daunting to move to a city of strangers! We’ve had Dave’s parents and both Jess and Ollie visit from the UK which was wonderful. Both my sisters and two of my nephews have been up from Melbourne to visit. I managed a couple of trips down to Melbourne, the most recent was to meet my newest nephew (who is of course adorable).

Now that my health is drastically improving, I feel it’s time to really focus on The Fox and Dingo. It has been challenging working out where to focus my time and energy, and now I am ready to do a lot more. I’ve never wanted to turn my business into a huge money-making success. For me it’s not about the big bucks. All I want is for us to be able to buy our dream property where we can grow flowers and create the lifestyle we have been dreaming of. While that’s still a little way off, every cent I make from the business is being invested back in, to eventually be able to set up our dream flower farm one day. To make every success of this I’m planning on focussing more on multiple revenue streams as we did in the UK, rather than just wedding and event floristry.

I want to share with you what I’ll be working on over the next year, to in some way make me accountable. I’ve had some of these ideas brewing for some time and I often find when I say them out loud, they are more likely to eventuate.

Print Shop

I’ve been dreaming of this one for quite a few years and often told myself my photography isn’t good enough! I get lots of encouraging comments of the photos I share online, and I’ve decided I want this up and running within the next three months. I have a lot to organise, in the 6 years I’ve been dabbling into photography, I have never once printed a single photo. I want to take my very best photos I have captured of nature in that time and share them with the world. I have begun selecting my favourite contenders for the print shop and I will probably need your help at some point to narrow these down (keep your eye on Instagram I’ll be asking you for some feedback soon). The best part of the print shop is I will be able to open it to you no matter where you are in the world. If we have never lived close and you have always wanted to support my work, this will be how you can.

Dried Everlasting Range

This is not a new area of artistry to me, I have been creating dried floristry work for years, this will however be my first time opening an offering here in Australia. I plan on creating some mini wreaths and bouquets over the next few weeks with flowers I dried from last summer. I will then continue drying stems over the season to release a larger collection next autumn/winter.

Seed Shop

I successfully sold a small offering of seeds in the UK and so again this is not new to me. I plan to slowly build up a collection of seeds to offer and I hope if you’re local to me you will be interested in what I produce.

Floristry Services

I will continue to market my wedding and event work and hope to ramp this up following the weddings I’ll be flowering in July and August with an opportunity to create fresh content. I am also working on a package for corporate clients in Brisbane. If you run a local business and are interested in a weekly flower delivery for your counter, display or tables I’d love to hear from you.

I have decided to put workshops on pause for a little while. I love sharing my knowledge and really enjoy teaching so I know I will come back to them in the future. I just don’t have the right set up now to make these financially viable.

There you have it, my plan for the next six to 12 months. I will be doing all this along side my part time day job and I feel so ready now to be busy, to focus and grow The Fox and Dingo. To also know that my body is physically ready to do it all too is very reassuring.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on my plans in the comments below or hear about any plans you have for this second half of the year.

Much love,

Lauren.