Lyn Bayfield's nerves are frayed, and she has pushed her body past the point of exhaustion, but her aching hands fly as she greets customers with a smile and drives herself to meet demand on Mother's Day. The Eumundi Roses co-owner said the build-up was a logistical nightmare.
"We work two weeks straight preparing and the last two days are 48 hours straight, no sleep, and then we collapse," she said. The work towards one day in May began late last year when she and her father planted the first of three crops of lisianthus, sunflowers, carnations, gerberas, snapdragons, celosia, daisies, fragrant stocks, native flowers, and foliage.
February's floods swept away seedlings and made growing conditions even tougher. Ms. Bayfield suggested making May "Mother's Month, not Mother's Day" to ease the pressure on florists, flower farmers, and families.
While elsewhere in Australia, florists are buoyed by support for locally grown blooms, Ms. Bayfield has expressed her disappointment at losing sales to cheaper imported bouquets. It was largely due to increasing imports from countries like Malaysia, Colombia, China, Kenya, South Africa, and Ecuador, where labor costs were significantly lower.
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