Marisa Vodanovich, founder of the Urban Floral Farmlet, ripped up her own lawn to start growing flowers in her backyard.
Marisa Vodanovich, founder of the Urban Floral Farmlet, ripped up her own lawn to start growing flowers in her backyard.
Marisa Vodanovich, founder of Urban Floral Farmlet, talks to Tom Raynel about starting a florist business in her backyard and how she’s adapted to working out of corporate life.
What is the Urban Floral Farmlet?
I’m a micro-flower farmer on a quarter-acre in the suburban Te Atatū Peninsula. Pre-Covid-19, Ihad a huge back lawn that seemed very wasteful, and post-Covid I ripped up that lawn and planted it completely with flowers.
I call it a farmlet because to me when you have a farm, that represents some large area of land. I’m absolutely not that, I’m literally surrounded by probably 30 townhouses that have been built up around me in the last 10 years.
I’m a born-and-bred Westie Croatian. I was born and brought up on an orchard, winemaking and market garden and in fact, a flower farm. When Covid hit, it seemed like everybody either made bread or started gardening. I already knew how to make bread, so I started gardening.
When I started coming back into the office from lockdowns, I started bringing in little bouquets and posies of flowers and putting them on my own desk at work. It was purely to make me happy because that was a pretty rough time all around. What ended up happening was that I had a number of people saying, ‘Oh, where’d you get those? If you’re making those, would you sell me one because I really like them?' It planted a seed in my head.
I was at a level that was head-office, corporate-type office scenarios. The side context of life was that my daughter was expecting a baby and my parents were getting on and having health issues. I had what I think they call a ‘come to Jesus’ moment when you sit down and reassess life. I worked out that it was more important for me to be available for my family, and they were most important to me at this particular time in my life.
Marisa Vodanovich decided after years in corporate life to turn her backyard into a functioning flower farm.
So you grow the flowers in your own backyard?
I started putting the wheels in motion to extend the garden that had just been a nice little edging along the back edge of my big lawn. I peeled the whole thing back and started planting and building bays, and now I’m probably the fittest and strongest I’ve ever been in my whole life. I managed to negotiate a second site, which is where I’ve got a lot of larger trees, shrubs and perennials, which can cope a little bit more looking after themselves.
I grow dahlias, zinnias, daisies and cosmos, and they’re much more the kinds of flowers that florists tend to avoid because they don’t have as long a life as the standard roses and gerberas and irises. The reason for that is the supply chain.
It can take anywhere up to a week from the flowers being cut to when they get to a florist, to when you actually walk out of a florist store with a bouquet in your hands. A perfect example in contrast is I was harvesting on Saturday and selling those flowers on Sunday at the Central Flea Market.
The Central Flea Market is the best market in Auckland. I’m the only flower stall on that site with over 100 stalls. I always say, take a Sunday morning walk and get your coffee, a pastry and a bouquet of flowers, and you might find a vase to pop your flowers into while you’re at it.
Marisa Vodanovich decided after years in corporate life to turn her backyard into a functioning flower farm.
How is your flower subscription performing?
There are a lot of flower farmers that I follow in the United States who have flower subscriptions. The advantage they have is that there are a whole heap more people in their country compared to New Zealand. The reasoning for it for me was that there’s a lot of unknowns when you’re growing, what’s happening in the sky being the number one culprit.
There’s a lot of unknowns as far as your sales channels as well, and subscriptions are something where people commit to your flowers and there’s a degree of security there for me that I’ve got that regular income coming in.
I’ve got a regular base of locals who have been wonderful. Most of them now are people who don’t even have a timeframe or a time limit. It’s just a case of ‘when you’ve got flowers, I want them'. That’s so heartening for a small business to have a core group of customers who are just absolutely 100% your advocates.
Urban Floral Farmlet is the only floristry stall at Auckland's Central Flea Market, often selling flowers picked just the day before.
What would be your advice to other budding entrepreneurs wanting to start their own business?
Honestly, I think I think it would have to be a cross between either resilience or tenacity. Maybe it’s a good dollop of both, but you have to work really, really, really hard. I can’t emphasise how much harder you have to work than any job that you get a salary for, and you have to hang in there. Every day there’s a new mistake to be made to learn from.
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business and retail.
