Pick your own cut flowers and healing herbs
Welcome to Slow Blooms
Slow Blooms is a play on the Slow Foods and Slow Flowers movement, which values produce grown locally, in their natural season, using sustainable practices - as opposed to flowers grown with the use of harsh chemicals and pesticides, and often flown in from greenhouses in faraway countries, spending days or even weeks in transit before they reach their destination.
Slow Blooms to us also means letting good things take time - going for a mindful stroll and enjoying picking the blooms you love, as opposed to grabbing a plastic-wrapped bunch on your way through the supermarket.
In September 2020, we started transforming parts of the grapevines behind Charlies into a flower garden, with the vision to create a special experience for visitors, to pick their own beautiful bouquets and healing herbs for teas, tinctures, and culinary use.
Founder Rebecka Keeling holds an NZ Certificate in Horticulture, a Permaculture Design Certificate, and is co-founder of the Permaculture Mahurangi group. Our blooms are grown according to earth-friendly permaculture principles - with care for the earth and for our visitors and staff.
Keen to volunteer? We welcome volunteers who are keen to help and learn in the garden. Just send us a message!
See you in the blooms!
How it works
Entry is free with Slow Blooms purchase, i.e. picking or buying a ready made bunch from our honesty stall or dried range.
Just looking? Entry is $5 for adults and $2 for children.
How to pick at Slow Blooms:
Borrow a basket or a bucket from the shed.
Select a pair of snips (parents should cut for their kids).
Wander through the rows and select your flowers - cut stems just above a set of leaves. And please keep your feet on the grass.
Return your basket, bucket and snips to the shed.
Tie a piece of twine around your blooms if you like.Weigh your blooms and pay at the shed, or inside Charlies if the shed is not staffed.
And remember to take your time and smell the flowers!
Prices
Flowers are charged by weight - you end up paying a little bit more than at the supermarket, but a little bit less than at a florist.
Cut flowers: $10 per 100 grams
A minimum picking charge of $5 applies
Herbs and flower tips: $30 per 100 grams
Leaves and flower tips for herbal teas, pressing, drying, cake decorations, etc.
Maximum charge per flower: $15
Including our giant single-stem sunflowers, regardless of weight.
Just looking? Entry is $5 for adults and $2 for children.
Twine, gift wrap or paper bag is included in all purchases.
Gift cards available - for the perfect zero waste present!
Tips
On hot summers days, flowers keep longer if they are picked in the mornings and into a bucket of water.
Pick flowers above a set of leaves.
Keep your feet out of the flower beds and on the grass - this includes little feet and paws!
To make sure your flowers stay fresh for the trip home, you can buy a jar in our shed and fill with water from our buckets.
Slow Blooms Instagram
