By Tyler Wright
Owners of Hancock’s Daffodils Will and Christine Ashburner will feature in this year’s Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show — the southern hemisphere’s largest horticultural event.
The couple will present their collection of flowers in the Pavillion area by the lake from Wednesday 30 March to Sunday 3 April.
Presented by Scotts Osmocote, the festival is returning to the Carlton Gardens and Royal Exhibition Building after a two-year-long hiatus due to the pandemic.
The coveted show is part of a long tradition for the Menzie’s Creek family-run business, having been founded by Harry Brown in 1917.
“We’ve been doing it for over 20 years, and our predecessors were doing it before that,” Ms Ashburner said.
“It’s a fantastic show in a great venue and it’s always nice this time of year; the gardens in Autumn.”
On display at the International Flower and Garden Show will be floral and landscape designs, accompanied by talks from industry experts and hands-on workshops. This will give the Ashburners and their team the chance to share their multitude of flowers, not limited to only daffodils.
What is special about this farm, Christine said, is the “hundreds and hundreds” of flower varieties they grow, appealing to home gardeners who are “slightly on the fanatical side.”
“We just like to take a big range of varieties of daffodils, but other things too; tulips, lots of spring bulbs,” she said.
“We are certainly an established business and well known for breeding daffodils and having a huge range. There’s not such a lot of people doing that sort of thing these days.”
Ms Ashburner said when you plant a bulb, they will be identical but you breed other varieties by cross pollinating flowers.
Throughout September, Hancock’s Daffodils is open to the public, with a free display of what the farm has to offer. Hancock’s Daffodils also sells directly to people through a catalog, while also having a stall featuring an honesty box outside their property.
“This year we’ve got lovely, clean bulbs. We’ve been working hard and cleaning up the bulbs so they look really nice,” Will Ashburner said.
But owning 35 acres of land — and making a profit from it — doesn’t come without challenges.
“We’ve got threats to the business too about suburbia encroaching upon us too, making it more difficult to farm,” Mr Ashburner noted.
“Look at how much traffic there is nowadays.”
You can find the daffodil farm, and Will and Christine Ashburner, at 2 Jacksons Hill Road in Menzies Creek.
The Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show begins on Wednesday 30 March and ends on Sunday 3 April, with shows running between 9am and 5pm.
