Florist On The Cutting Edge

Melanie Stapleton doesn't do peonies from Holland or roses from India. She is very particular about lilies and avoids gerberas full stop. Florist's cyclamen has lost it allure for her now that you can buy it in supermarkets all over town and as for sunflowers, she prefers them in a field in Italy "swaying in the breeze and following the sun" rather than in a vase in Melbourne.

While she does concede to stocking cymbidium orchids from New Zealand and freesias from Tasmania, Stapleton – the florist behind Cecilia Fox – prefers blooms that are seasonal, local and grown without lots of chemicals.

She has a soft spot for parsley going to seed and the prickly pear and fennel that run rampant beside train lines. She loves zinnias, cosmos and borage – "simple to grow and a bit naive".

When we speak, she has fine branches of japonica – grown in Monbulk – stretching all around her Brunswick shop and a couple of buckets of poppies from other local growers in the back of her van. She bought the poppies from the wholesale market in Footscray at 4.30 that morning and is about to take them home to scald the stems in boiling water (to stop their sap flowing into the water and making the flowers "go mushy".) Then she will cosset them somewhere warm for the rest of the week to ensure the flowers are wide open for a wedding this weekend.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Border Edge