I’m Ali. For over twenty years, I worked as a florist for weddings, events, commercial work, and the full spectrum of the industry. I was good at it. But somewhere along the way, the flowers lost their depth.

I have always foraged. From as far back as I can remember, flowers have held something sacred for me, not just beauty, but meaning. Connection. I would roam and gather and feel something settle in me that I couldn't quite name.

From a young age, any special occasion meant one thing to me! The table, the flowers, the way a space could be transformed. It always felt less like decoration and more like an act of care.

When commercial floristry stopped resonating with me, I went back to the gardens. And what came back with it was something I hadn't realised I'd lost. A fullness, a sense of purpose that no shop floor or mass produced stem had ever been able to give me.

Even during my years in retail floristry, there was one job I always felt the weight of differently. A casket cover. I would look at the name on the order form and try to feel into who that person was. To honour them. Because I understood what it was, the last gift. The thing that would shroud them. I never took that lightly.

When I lost some of the most important people in my life, I went to the places they had loved. I foraged their casket covers from the gardens they had looked out over every day, from the places that had held meaning for them. What I gathered wasn't just flowers, there were herbs, foliages, grasses, succulents, and on one occasion, vegetables.!

Things they had grown with their own hands.

It was one of the most profound experiences of my life.

And after my most recent loss, it became completely clear. This is the work I was made to do.

Home.

I have been in the Southern Highlands since I was seven years old. It called me back every time I left, and now I am here for good — with my husband and two beautiful children, my dog, my cat, my chickens, and two very spoilt sheep! x