Sometimes when you are flower farming it can feel like everything's tangled together - pricing, what to grow when, who to sell to - and how to juggle it all with everything else going on in your life.
That's exactly where the FBA meets you. Inside, you start turning that tangle into something workable - one strategy, one plan, at a time.
It’s not just about building a small business around seasonal flowers - you need one that fits with your land and life. Whether you farm flowers in a field or grow in a garden, there’s a place for you here.
We welcome flower farmers, garden growers, farmer florists or garden florists.
Whatever you call yourself. The FBA is for you if:
You grow flowers in Australia or New Zealand, any scale
You're growing flowers as a business - just starting out, or years into it and still refining
You're bringing real experience with you - a career, creative skills, the drive to succeed - and you want it working for your flower business.
No matter where you are right now—just starting out or years in—you’re at the stage that's right for you. And there'll be others alongside you figuring things at a similar pace.
STARTING UP
Setting your foundations - working out your varieties, your market, your pricing, before you commit to more.
building up
Creating systems that hold - consistent sales channels, real profitability, knowing what to keep and what to change.
SCALING UP
Scaling with intention - bigger operations, maybe stepping into industry leadership, without losing what made it work.
Whatever’s weighing on your mind - a pest attacking your crops, flower sales being down, or a wild idea you’d love to test out - there’ll be someone in the community who has been there before, and coaches running their own flower businesses to share your load.
You'll find flower friends in the FBA, not just fellow growers.
FBA has helped me develop the skills and find the courage to offer my flowers to my community and develop a very satisfying small business. Thank you!"—Ann, Poppyseed Garden
The community of growers is a wealth of knowledge and provides support through the upsides and downsides of flower farming."—Sineaid, Full of Posies
Most advice about flower farming comes from the northern hemisphere. It’s out of sync with us in New Zealand and Australia.
In the north, Spring in March, peak season in June, autumn in September. Here, it's upside down.
But this is about more than getting the seasons right.
The market itself is different too. A flower farm in the UK or US might have a major city with a population of millions, and a dozen wholesale buyers, within an hour's drive.
In New Zealand and Australia its a very different picture. Customers are fewer and live further apart. Rural communities can be especially tight-knit. This makes for distinctly different trading conditions that demand a genuinely different approach to business building.
Growers here have to be pragmatic and resourceful, figuring things out as we go, with a good dose of “she’ll be right” carrying us through.
The FBA has been building a genuinely Antipodean approach to the business-side of flower farming since 2020. An approach to business built for our seasons, our market conditions, and our community.
BEING FLORAL UPSTARTS
It's a misnomer to think that flower farmers and garden growers are a scaled down versions of commercial flower growing operations.
We're not that. We're closer to market gardeners, craft brewers and artisan bakers - building businesses around craft, not volume, and offering something distinctly different from what's out there.
We're in the advantageous position of selling what we grow. Growing flowers may be our speciality, but our businesses are built from our own creativity and professional experience.
Professionalism here comes from working together, not growing alone - and it has nothing to do with the size of your patch. Whether you farm a field or grow in a garden, we stand as equals.
Partnerships with florists and wholesalers are a key to us serving those committed to sustainable, seasonal work - because we offer something a wholesaler can't: fewer flower miles, growing practices that give back, and flowers distinctive enough to build a florist's own creativity around.
We're not trying to fit into the existing floral industry, or fix it. We're building something new, on our own terms - and there's a place in it for you, if it's yours too.
That's what it means to be a floral upstart - building a business that works for you.
Growing in a few beds and calling yourself a flower farmer is one thing.
Building a business with customers that pay good money for their flowers, expecting quality and a professional service, is another - and that takes a different kind of effort and investment.
Working it out alone, season after season, is slow and costly.
The moment you join the FBA, you can start turning your ideas and aspirations into strategies and systems that build your business over time.
And the longer you stay with us, the sharper those systems get - because they keep being built on more of your own results and business advice that's specific to growing flowers commercially.
You know exactly which flowers to grow next season, and why - because you've worked out what actually pays, not just what you love growing
You set a price and hold it, because you know the true value of what you grow and sell
You've got two or three sales channels running, not just one that feels like it holds you to ransom
When sales get slow, you can tell whether it's the season, the price, or the channel - not just feel like everything's going wrong at once
You've got a plan for the year, not just in your head - but one where you can see what's coming before it lands on you
When something goes wrong - a bad market, a ruined bed, a channel that dries up - you don’t need to panic because you've already got a diagnosis for exactly this
You've got people to ask before you spend money on something new, not after you've invested heavily in something that won’t work.
What works for one grower won't work for you - your land, your market, your customers are unique to you. What does carry across is the business thinking: the same questions worth asking, whatever your answers turn out to be.
The single right way to build a flower business is what works for you.
Working on your business while you're still working in it is genuinely hard. The FBA is built by people doing exactly that - so you get business advice and support built specifically for growing and selling flowers.
Grow with purpose - Identify and cultivate flowers that will be in high demand and most profitable for your specific market
Stand out naturally - Position your business authentically without feeling pushy or "salesy"
Build a business around your life - make your business profitable through planning and systems, not just working hard
Sell with confidence - Pick the sales channels that suit your business and serve customers you love
Tell your story - Use social media strategically to connect with customers who value what makes your flowers special
Build momentum - Create systems that help your business run more smoothly, whether you're a solo grower or ready to build a small team
Diversify thoughtfully - Explore additional income streams that complement your core business without stretching you too thin
Real-time advice and support, built specifically for growing and selling flowers - at the cost of one bunch of flowers a month.
Activate Roadmap - the comprehensive guide to building a small business around seasonal flowers - a clear, deliberate way to design a business you can sustain
FBA Live - monthly mentoring for new and seasoned growers with times to suit New Zealand and Australian members
Slack support - day-to-day support in Slack, where conversations happen in real time
Momentum - the podcast just for members, keeping you connected to what's live and bite-size business advice on the go
Studio sessions - live conversations and hands-on sessions with experts and other FBA members
FBA Weekly - a personal update on what's happening inside the FBA
Meetups - in person, so you can tour other flower farms and commercial growing operations.
All of this - the mentoring, the roadmap, the systems - only exists because people already running flower businesses built it, turning generic business advice into something specific for small scale flower growers.
The Floral Business Activator is brought to you by Julie Treanor and Christy Ralphs, hands-on flower farmers with a combined 30+ years of flower business experience.
We help you build a flower business strategically and systematically using our experience as hands-on growers who know what it takes to sustain a flourishing business.
We're committed to growing the market for local, natural, and seasonal flowers.
OWNER OF THE PICKERY & CO-FOUNDER OF THE FBA
Julie helps growers build better flower businesses. A qualified coach and business mentor, she's been running The Pickery, a micro flower farm north of Wellington, NZ, for the past 8 years. She loves nothing better than thinking, writing, and talking about the business of seasonal flowers.
Julie co-founded the Wellington Flower Collective and created the online directory of New Zealand flower farms to make it easier for people to buy direct from flower growers.
OWNER OF NOURISH GARDENS & CO-FOUNDER OF THE FBA
Christy owns Nourish Gardens, a small-scale flower farm and education centre on Waiheke Island. With a background in teaching, she delights in sharing knowledge to help others succeed in building sustainable flower businesses.
Christy is a founding member of Floral Collective Aotearoa, an Auckland based wholesale flower market. She spearheaded the campaign to the New Zealand Government to represent the case for seasonal cut flower growers during the Covid Pandemic.
It is an invaluable forum for being nudged to constantly assess and improve both the strategic and growing aspects of my cut flower business. And the sense of comradeship with people who understand my lifestyle has kept me sane. Highly recommended!"
—Lisa, Flora Flowers
The incredible community, the professional development, the support, and encouragement have helped my business grow so much in the last year. I can't recommend this program enough. I'm truly grateful to Julie and Christy for developing such a treasure for flower farmers."
—Kat, Duncan Road Creative
Running a small flower business means juggling about 101 things - what to plant, what to charge, who to sell to, and whatever's gone wrong today. The Flywheel sorts all of that into three areas - Leading, Growing, Selling - turning around one hub: what you're building, who it's for, and why.
No two flywheels look the same, because no two businesses are. Yours is designed around your own land, your own customers, and your own version of success - and it works exactly the same way whether this is your first season or your ninth.
Success comes from doing the right things, in the right order, at the right time.
The Floral Business Flywheel™ is how we help you find that order. It's a way of seeing your business as one connected system, not a checklist or a fixed plan - where Leading, Growing and Selling all turn around the same hub: what you're building, why, and for whom.
We help you build momentum in three core areas:
🌿 LEADING – Strengthen your decisions, boundaries, and strategy so your business runs efficiently and reflects your values.
🌼 GROWING – Plan, plant, and harvest with your market in mind, not just your growing conditions - so effort turns into profit, not just more flowers.
💐 SELLING – Attract the right customers, price with confidence, and sell consistently (without burnout).
Strategy and planning
Administration systems
Finance and accounting
Risk management
Staffing and team building
Growing for profit and market fit
Choosing supplies as investments
Planting and harvesting to a plan
Growing for yield and quality
Managing pest, soil and weather risks
Choosing sales channels
Building a customer base
Pricing your flowers
Branding and marketing
Customer communications
With every turn, your business becomes more profitable, clearer, and more sustainable.
It's about doing what works, and letting momentum do the rest.
Being a member of the FBA gives you the business perspective you need to grow and sell flowers brilliantly. The combination of a business-building roadmap designed especially for flower growers alongside a community means you are never alone building your business from the ground up.
LEARN
People tell you your flowers are beautiful and they bring joy to people. The compliments are lovely but you’re working long hours and you’re not selling as many flowers as you want.
You're not sure if it's the pricing that's off, or that you're just not getting the word out. And you've been growing without chemical sprays - so when something's off with your sunflowers, you can't always tell if it's the soil, or something else entirely.
Between the flowers you and your customers love, and the business built around them, something isn't quite lining up.
Whatever the challenge - growing, business or selling - you can pinpoint it more clearly and work your way through it using:
Tuning into your floral business flywheel - to check that your sales promotions are lined up with your crop plans
One of the ready-to-use templates and spreadsheets, built specifically for flower growers, to check your pricing calculations are sound
Posting a question in Slack to see what might be the diagnosis on your sunflower problem
Watch a video that talks through the principles of growing regeneratively, to dig a bit deeper into your potential soil issue.
SUPPORT
You've got a decision that's been rattling around in your head for weeks - whether to raise your prices now or hold off another season. You could keep turning it over alone, or bring it to the next mentoring session.
What's wonderful about the FBA being live, over time - it stops feeling like a professional network and starts feeling like a flower family. Not because everyone's friendly, though they are, but because people get to know you and your business - what works for you, what you've struggled with, what you're trying next.
Whether you join live or catch up through the members-only podcast, you'll get to know the people, and the businesses they're building too.
No one makes every session. What matters is having the dates in your diary, so you can join when you can and catch up when you can't. You can join live in a few ways:
Join monthly mentoring, split for new and seasoned growers with a mix of times to suit people across time zones in New Zealand and Australia
Be part of live studio sessions led by experts and by members on the most topical matters for running a business growing and selling flowers
Spending a day or weekend at a meetup or retreat, when being in person adds a different kind of connection.
stay connected
When you join, you open the FBA membership hub for the first time with no idea where anything is. Fifteen minutes later, thanks to the welcome guide and video tour, you know exactly where everything lives - and you're already looking at the one thing that's actually relevant to you right now, not scrolling through everything at once.
You catch Momentum, the members-only podcast, while you’re planting, driving or walking the dog. FBA Weekly lands once a week - one email telling you what's live and what's actually worth your attention.
A proper welcome guide and video tour, so you're oriented from day one
Momentum, the members-only podcast, for catching up on the go
FBA Weekly - one email, what's live and what to look at next.
We've deliberately prioritised a year-round programme for flowers, not a course.
A course teaches you once, then leaves you to apply it forever on your own. No single course can ever cover what comes next. Businesses change and the world around them changes. What worked last season may be failing this. Applying a one-time method to your business simply isn’t enough.
It’s the place where you can debrief on Spring crops with other growers, share notes so that you can select the best varieties of tulips for next season and trial a few new things.
The flower industry changes too. In the FBA, we stay in touch with what’s new and potentially what’s coming down the track. We’re in touch with industry players - florists, wholesalers and policy makers - so when something is shifting elsewhere in the industry we’re part of the conversation.
The FBA reshapes to suit what you need. What we started with in 2020 is vastly different to what we do now. Our business guides are refreshed with the latest trends, tips and innovations in the world of small scale flower farming.
The benefit of a year-round programme is that you can:
Dip in when you need it, or dive deep every week
Work at your own pace, and ask for help when you need it
Join sessions live, or catch up in your own time
Be active in the community, or watch quietly from the sidelines.
A year-round programme is built to fit how growing and selling flowers actually works - season after season, not once and done.
The Activate Roadmap is there for you the moment you join.
You can tap into the Activate Roadmap when you need to, or work through it step-by-step at your own pace. Most members work on whatever's relevant that season, as time allows. Here's how that tends to map across the year:
Rethinking your business
Learning how to make your business better.
Entrepreneurship
Leveling up your business leadership.
Activating your strengths
Strengthening the core of your business.
Business Blueprint
The simple way to set your business plans.
Marketing Matters
The smart way to do your marketing
Selling with ease
Strategies to make selling easier
Socialising your business
Ways to make your social marketing purposeful
Lean Flower Farming
Strategies to minimise waste and maximise value
Seasonality
Turn the seasons to your advantage in your business
Adding value to your business
increase profitability without increasing workload
Working well
The essentials of looking after yourself
Doing business regeneratively
How to make your business a force for good
A group of people at varying stages of their flower growing journeys, enabling me to access grounded and relevant information, while also being able to impart advice from experience and opinions too as my own journey has progressed. The FBA Community is a safe place to chat about the art of flowers, growing and selling without any judgement or prejudice."
—Emilie, Arrowtown Flower Company
From the business advice and resources you get, to the personal connections you make whether it be attending the Meet-ups and Retreats or just communicating on Slack. It’s a safe place to share your highs and lows, ask questions and feel comfortable without judgment. Being able to absorb knowledge from a range of grower experiences has helped me continue on my journey with confidence.
—Haidee, Ngakuru Flower Farm
This is where you stop guessing and start knowing what it takes to build a seasonal flower business that fits around your life and land - what to grow, what to charge, who to sell to, and why. You'll always have somewhere to bring whatever's live for you this week, and people who know this business to work it through with you. Whatever your business needs next, you're not figuring it out from scratch, alone.
From joining a ready-made support system of fellow flower farmers and making a close circle of peers in my area to gaining access to a massive resource of knowledge, information and experts as well as one on one mentoring from the fabulous Julie, it has all been so helpful!" —Marisa, Urban Flower Farmlet
knowing I have access to resources and support from those who have been there before and those who are experiencing the same issue." —Caroline, In My Garden
Not really. It's a year-round programme of mentoring, real conversation, and business-specific guidance for growing and selling flowers - not something you finish once. Your business keeps changing season to season, so we do too.
We open for new members a few times a year, for a focused window each time. Join the waitlist and we'll let you know the moment the next one opens.
The FBA is built specifically for flower growers in Australia and New Zealand - our seasons, our markets, our conditions. If you're farming in the Northern Hemisphere, this honestly isn't built for you - but we'd point you toward resources made for your own hemisphere instead.
Coaching and mentoring are both ways to work through challenges that are unique to your business. Mentoring is us sharing our own experience so you can apply it to your situation. Coaching is us asking the questions that help you think it through yourself.
FBA Weekly lands once a week - a personal note on what's happening and what's worth your attention. Momentum, the members-only podcast, keeps you connected to what's live. The Activate Roadmap is there whenever you need it, sorted by gear rather than tied to a set weekly topic, so you can work through whatever's actually relevant to your business right now.
This is a group programme, so coaching sessions are open to the whole community. You'll get your questions answered in the monthly mentoring sessions or in the Slack community.
Group coaching and workshops are held via Zoom, an online meeting platform. Typically the mentoring sessions are held on Tuesday's, 12.30-1.30.pm NZ | 10.30-11.30 AEST OR 7-8pm NZST | 5-6pm AEST. There's also a special session for our Australian members on a Wednesday 7-8pm AEST. These are recorded so that you can re-watch or catch up later if you missed them.
As much or as little as you want. Most Roadmap activities are built to take 1-2 hours a week, though some topics might need more depending on what's live in your business right now.
It’s just NZ$45 per month or you can pay NZ$495 for a full year which in effect means one month free.
Good question. When you sign up you agree to the general terms and conditions of Podia, our membership platform. We also have the following conditions that apply when you join. You can read a full copy here.
Membership of the Floral Business Activator renews automatically each month or year. You need to be vigilant of your membership renewal date so if you wish to cancel your membership you don’t get charged automatically. This is especially the case for annual renewals.
We can clean up snafus with membership renewals but cannot refund any payment processing fees associated with your membership, these are charged by Stripe (our payment processing system) and typically cost X% of your membership fee each month or year.
You can cancel any time. We'll take no further payments, and you'll keep access for the rest of that month.
Ask away! Email hello@floralbusinessactivator.com
I want to tell you something before you go - something personal to me, and to everyone already in the FBA.
I've watched people who are part of the FBA for more than 6 years. In every case I see flower growers who have everything that actually matters to building a floral business. A real skill with the flowers, a genuine eye, and the drive to make this work, years of turning up even when it's hard. None of that was ever the problem.
What was missing wasn't inside them.
It was somewhere to share their ideas, ambitions and challenges so they could turn their passion for flowers into a business that works for them.
That's the whole reason the FBA exists - to make sure the business side of growing and selling makes sense and makes money, so you can work and live the way you most want, without carrying it alone or figuring it out from scratch every time you move forward.
Whether you want something specific - setting a price without worry, knowing how to tie your growing to your selling, or troubleshooting a catastrophe with a crop - inside the FBA you'll find someone who has stood where you are standing now.
A big part of the fun of flower farming is the challenges we face, even though it might not seem like it at the time. Doing something different in the flower industry can be undeniably tricky too.
After 8 years of growing and selling flowers backed by more than 20 years running my own business, I've learned one thing - doing it alone is harder than it needs to be. Trying to retrofit generic business advice to the world of small-scale flower farming is a long and often fruitless exercise.
And just as you think you've figured it all out, another curveball comes along.
The FBA is here to help you catch it and run with it.
If that's what you're ready for, I would love to join us in the FBA.
Julie, Co-founder of the FBA and owner of the Pickery
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