PYO flowers at Apollo Farm
Waitakere nursery and flower farm Apollo Farm is holding pick-your-own (PYO) flower events this summer and autumn.
Visitors can pick from more than 400 types of dahlias, salvias and flowering perennials in a secluded setting that backs onto established native bush.
At $50 a bucket, customers can take home enough flowers to fill many vases, says award-winning flower breeder Joshua Hall who created Apollo Farm.
Joshua is a retired journalist, teacher and internationally published wine writer who has been gardening all his life.
He became interested in dahlias while working for Dr Keith Hammett as a gardener after returning to New Zealand from Asia and the Pacific and started collecting Keith’s breeding rejects then breeding those plants together in one garden.
Some of the results are available on the Apollo Farm website www.apollofarm.nz established in November last year.
Joshua was also growing 42 types of heirloom organic tomatoes, which proved popular with locals.
Dahlias need dividing every two to three years and, along with tomatoes, quickly took over the property.
Joshua leased a neighbour’s sloped field and started work on it in August 2018, selling produce through a roadside stall.
He also started seriously trapping predators and pests on the property and on neighbouring properties and is now Predator Free Waitakere Swanson Partnerships Manager.
Joshua was selling dahlia tubers to locals who asked him to divide the tuber clumps for them, so he began teaching about dahlias, their anatomy, life cycle and correct techniques for tuber division, enlisting Dr Keith Hammett’s help for science and history teaching in the workshops which brought people from as far as three hours’ drive away.
The workshops ran for four years through COVID-19 and online during restrictions.
“By the winter of 2023 the workshops had evolved into a 4.5-hour Dahlia Masterclass with practical tasks, theory, homework, online videos and an exam,” says Joshua.
In 2020, Joshua attended the Waihi Dahlia Flower show and started showing his own dahlias at the Hamilton Gardens where he won three trophies, two ribbons for two champion blooms and 27 prizes.
Apollo Farm continued to grow through COVID-19, two major floods, a cyclone and a drought.
Systems were introduced and refined, a grid layout perfected and soil improved through investment in quality organic inputs.
The market garden was quickly replaced by more dahlias.
Joshua developed a strong interest in tree dahlias after multiple evaluations of Dr Keith Hammett's historical but fading collection, and he bred tree dahlia 'Galaxy Prince' a cross of three hybrids and species, also growing tough flowering perennials as bee food, selecting and evaluating flowering perennials for their durability and suitability for local conditions.
Joshua and Apollo Farm have also been collecting rare and unusual salvias which Joshua aims to breed from about 1000 species plus hybrids.
Apollo Farm is also available for hire as a photo and film location.
Ample parking is onsite and Eftpos is available.
Visit www.apollofarm.nz for more information.