Dish the Dirt

Dawn Allen began as a Saturday girl in her local florist shop, met her husband at Covent Garden Flower Market, and now farms Australian natives from Bob's Garden — fifty acres at Boneo on the Mornington Peninsula, looking out to Bass Strait. In May, she took banksias to the Chelsea Flower Show with her exhibit Banksia Evolution, tracing the banksia from seed pod to full bloom, and came home with a silver-gilt.
In this episode, Dawn shares:
Starting out in a UK florist shop and how floristry kept pulling her back
Falling for wildflowers fifteen years ago, when King Proteas were three dollars a stem
Bob's Garden — the fifty-acre property at Boneo, the man it's named for, and letting his plants live out their lives in the ground
Why farm-grown, not flown, matters: freshness, chemicals, and supporting Victorian flower farms
Her love of the kinked, cockatoo-chewed, perfectly imperfect stem
Winning Spirit of the Show at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show
Applying for Chelsea — being number 11 out of 10 the first year, then getting the acceptance email just before Christmas
Designing Banksia Evolution: seed to plant to flower to full bloom, with steel tubing as the life force running through it
The growers who backed her, and 27 boxes of flowers arriving in London without one broken stem
Bump-in at Chelsea: the portal, the time slots, and why organisation is everything
Discovering the silver-gilt medal on her exhibit on judging morning
International florists asking "what are these, where can I get them?"
With thanks to the growers who made Chelsea happen:
Craig Scott — East Coast Wildflowers
Cassie and the Musson family — Wafex Australia
Robert Luff — paper daisies
Brimstone Waratahs
Banksia Co
Find Dawn: Peninsula Wildflower — Bob's Garden, Boneo, Mornington Peninsula @peninsulawildflower_
Photos of Banksia Evolution are up on our socials — go and have a look.

Five years ago, Bec sat down with Petrina from Petrina Blooms as Melbourne crawled out of its first COVID lockdown. This episode, she finally makes it back for that promised gin — and finds out everything that's bloomed, died back and come up again since.
What started as an accidental side hustle off a single Facebook message has turned into a full business, taking Petrina to teach floral workshops in France and, soon, on a retreat in India. She's also finished writing her first book, Garden Joy — a deeply personal look at how the garden has held her through grief, loss and postnatal depression — out worldwide in March next year.
They dig into what's changed in the garden itself: 16,000 bulbs (up from a few thousand), a growing patch of natives to handle Melbourne's warming winters, a heartbreaking loss of a thousand delphiniums to slugs and snails, and Petrina's ongoing (unofficial) quest for a rose named after her.
There's a check-in on the local and seasonal flower movement they both championed back in 2020 — and how far it's actually come — before the mic flips, and Petrina turns the tables to interview Bec. They cover Dish the Dirt's growth to ~90 episodes, why Growers Avenue at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show matters so much, and details on Bec's upcoming New Zealand workshop in Kakanui (26–27 September).
TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Reunited, five years on 01:16 The garden today 02:19 Then vs. now 05:26 From side hustle to real business 08:14 The book: Garden Joy 15:15 Heartbreak in the garden 16:47 Climate change & the garden 19:04 Garden tours & the flower bar 22:13 Has the local-flower shift happened? 27:36 The rose (and the Slovenia discovery) 29:21 The three things test 31:50 Flip the mic: Petrina interviews Bec 40:38 Bec's New Zealand workshop 50:12 Outro
Find Petrina and that glorious garden on Instagram at @PetrinaBlooms.
Want to be on the show? No garden is too big or too small — get in touch at dishthedirtpodcast@gmail.com

Some episodes are time capsules. This is one of them.
We're rewinding to late 2020, as Victoria emerged from its first long lockdown — gin raised, friends finally allowed over, the whole state breathing out. In the middle of it sits Petrina from Petrina Blooms: a lifelong flower obsessive who turned a suburban Ivanhoe block into a garden of 8,000+ bulbs and 120 roses, and who had just started selling bouquets completely by accident.
Petrina has loved flowers since she grew a single perfumed carnation from seed in prep and wrote in her grade-six diary that she wanted to be a florist. She kept that love deliberately un-commercial for decades, working weekends as a florist's "bucket girl" because she never wanted to "curse a flower" by making it her job. Her path wound through years working with people experiencing homelessness, then to the skies as an Emirates flight attendant — earning the nickname "Flower Girl" for smuggling peonies, lilacs and frangipani home in the first-class fridge. After marrying a passenger and trading Dubai's seasonless heat for Melbourne's four seasons, she came home, felt utterly lost, and ordered four thousand ranunculus for a tiny terrace garden.
From there it grew: a move to Ivanhoe "for the garden," a 40-year-old wisteria she refused to renovate around, a postnatal depression she gardened her way through, an open garden that welcomed kindergartens and neighbours, and — in lockdown, off a single Facebook message — her first bouquets for sale. A warm, funny, generous chat about old-fashioned flowers, healing and community.
What we cover:
(04:00) A carnation grown in prep and a grade-six diary entry
(06:00) Becoming a florist's "bucket girl" — and keeping flowers casual
(08:30) Bluffing her way into Emirates and life as the "Flower Girl"
(10:00) Chasing flowers around the world — Switzerland, Munich, Dubai
(13:00) Meeting Ricky on a flight to Vienna and the 4,000-ranunculus order
(16:00) Henry, postnatal depression, and gardening as a way through
(18:00) Buying the Ivanhoe house for its "bones" — and that wisteria
(22:00) The open garden as a way to connect a quieter neighbourhood
(24:00) Accidentally starting a business in lockdown
(26:00) Chemical-free by choice — coffee grounds, bicarb soda, ladybeetles
(28:00) Grown vs flown: why local and seasonal matters
(34:00) Her best advice: plant what you love, and plant two in case one dies
(39:00) The signature question: Pa's wheelbarrow, cosmos seeds, the wisteria
(43:00) Rose tips, garden heroes, and a dream of a rose named after her
🌿 Find Petrina: @PetrinaBlooms on Instagram
We've since caught up with Petrina five years on — what happened to those secret dahlias, whether the accidental business stuck, and whether Bec ever made it over for that gin. Keep an ear out.
Loved it? Subscribe, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share it with a fellow flower obsessive. Want to be on the show? No garden is too big or too small — email dishthedirtpodcast@gmail.com.
Get out there, do your thing, and be blooming fabulous

Dish the Dirt — Show Notes
The Cotton Bunch with Jamie Rother & Caroline Azria
What happens when a third-generation cotton farmer and a Paris-born UX designer meet at Disney World, fall in love, and end up growing flowers on the Darling Downs? You get The Cotton Bunch — and one of the most unexpected stories in Australian flower farming.
Jamie Rother and Caroline Azria run The Cotton Bunch across two properties near Toowoomba, Queensland. Their journey started as a 3am Sydney Flower Market experiment, survived a pandemic, weathered floods, frosts and a burnt-down farm — and became one of the most exciting growing operations in Southeast Queensland.
In this episode we cover their backstory, the leap from corporate life to full-time farming, the radical mindset shift from yield to aesthetic, reviving a fire-devastated wildflower farm in Hampton, and what it actually takes to hit your targets when the black soil turns to sinking sand. Plus their proudest moment, the harvest that brought the whole team to their knees, and what it means to build something like this with the person you love.
In this episode:
Trading Sydney careers for a cotton farm during COVID
From 3am flower market runs to tens of thousands of sunflower stems a week
Yield vs aesthetic — why floriculture is a completely different mindset
Reviving a 40-acre wildflower farm burned by an arsonist in 2019
Joining Wildflowers Australia and finding their grower community
The Christmas bush harvest that tested everyone
Their proudest Mother's Day moment
Links & Resources
The Cotton Bunch — cottonbunch.com | @thecottonbunch
Wildflowers Australia — wildflowersaustralia.com.au — tickets now on sale for the 11th National Conference & Expo, Sunshine Coast, 14–15 August 2026. Pre-conference farm tour at The Cotton Bunch, Hampton, 12 August.
Madge Goods — madgegoods.com | @madge_goods — use code DIRT15 for 15% off the Stella Jumpsuit
Dish the Dirt goes in search of Australian flower farmers and shares their stories. Hosted by Rebecca Noble. Got a brand that'd love to reach this community? Head to dishthedirt.com.au and hit contact.
Until next time — keep being blooming fabulous. 🌸

Some people don't just start businesses — they start movements. This week I sit down with Jess, the powerhouse founder of the Flower Summit, the Newcastle Food & Flower Markets and the Newcastle Flower School.
We go right back to the beginning: the entrepreneurial kid who landed her first job at thirteen, started her first company at twenty-three with a hundred chair covers sewn in her auntie's garage, and went on to bring Australian Bridal Fashion Week to the country. From there, Jess found flowers — and never looked back, now running around two hundred weddings a year.
But the heart of this episode is the spark behind the Flower Summit: a trip to the US, a community of female growers who cheer each other on instead of competing, and the courage to bring that same generous spirit home to Australia.
In this episode: • Growing up entrepreneurial and starting a business at 23 • Bringing Australian Bridal Fashion Week to Australia • Falling in love with flowers and building a wedding business • Coming home to launch the Newcastle Food & Flower Markets • Tall-poppy culture vs. the "you go, girl" spirit she found in the US • How the Flower Summit was born (and named before her plane even landed) • Why it's for everyone — growers, designers, men and women alike • The Australian grower-led flower pricing guide she's building for the industry
🌸 The Flower Summit — a two-day celebration of women in floriculture (everyone welcome) with world-class speakers and hands-on workshops. 📅 24–25 November 2026 📍 Stanley Park, just outside Newcastle 🎟️ Tickets & details: flowersummit.com.au
This episode is proudly sponsored by the Flower Summit, and Dish the Dirt is the official podcast and media partner — I'll be there capturing all the stories, so come and say hello.
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