Images: Sheri McMahon

Little Triffids owner and fabulous flower farmer Sophie shares her 'grassroots' story below.

Q. How did your grassroots story start?

A.  Little Triffids Flowers started in 2015 as the maternity-leave hobby of two friends. It began as a tiny backyard flower farm and seasonal flower delivery service and has grown into a slightly less tiny (but still micro!) flower farm and a blossoming business that creates dreamy florals for over 50 weddings a year, delivers unique and seasonal gift bouquets all around Wagga Wagga and runs flower arranging and flower growing workshops throughout the year.

Q. How would you define your business/service as local?

A. We are based in the village of North Wagga, the perfect location in that it’s rural, but five minutes into bustling Wagga Wagga. Business partner and chief flower farmer Sophie is originally from Wagga Wagga and after some time away moved back here to settle down with her family. The business has a local-first focus growing as many of our own flowers as we can and employing a small team of wonderful local floral and farm assistants to work with us. We buy flowers in from other locals first and foremost and then look further afield when we have to. For our workshops we love using local food, drink and gift ware suppliers, like the Wagga Wagga Potters Club to create our vases.

Q. How have you pivoted during this time of Covid-19? And, have you experienced an increase in ‘shopping local?’

A.  Despite losing all our wedding work for the season, we have experienced a huge surge in people buying our gift flowers. The crisis has occurred during the peak of our autumn season in the flower farm, so we created a farm stand for people to collect blooms as part of their weekly shopping and found that to be extremely popular. We have also successfully moved some of our face to face workshop experiences to an online format which actually broadened our accessibility further afield, whilst also bringing us more to the attention of the local market.

Q. Why is it important for consumers to root for local?

A.  So many reasons! It’s good for the environment, less carbon miles on your flowers mean fresher flowers, and it’s good for the local economy. By employing locals and utilising the services of local businesses money stays in the community. All this helps to grow the profile of Wagga Wagga as a go-to destination and a creative hub.

Q. What’s next for your business/service?

A.  Business has boomed for us over this time which has been a surprise and we’ve found ourselves selling out! We’re working hard on streamlining our services and building capacity so that we can spread more beauty around the region. We also have new workshop offerings in the pipeline and my goodness are we looking forward to getting back to weddings!

Head to Little Triffids website for more on this great business.

<<< back to Back to our roots home page.