This week I had the chance to have a few day getaway to Tenterfield to see my partner and for a little country retreat. Between business work, I set out on foot to explore the town with its beautiful historical look and feel, tree lined streets, roses and flower gardens and old buildings. I also explored the ‘Tenterfield’ instagram location tag to see if I could find some hidden gems from the locals… and I did!
It is here that I found the White Cottage Flower Farm. The farm is the home of Mandy & Hamish Reid, passionate lovers of cottage gardens, flower farming and vintage and farmhouse wares. I contacted with Mandy to see if I could come and visit, take some photographs and setup my laptop for the afternoon for some work and she was more than happy for me to do so.
I got to know Mandy & Hamish’ story and had to share it with you all! The couple have lived in Tenterfield for 23 years and only in the past 8 years they’ve been selling plants/flowers at their nursery and vintage homewares and only the past year have they opened up the flower farm.
Before living in Tenterfield they weren’t big into gardening, they were inspired by the beauty of the region, cool climates and the gardens in Tenterfield.
When Mandy & Hamish first started the project, the beautiful ‘White Cottage’ that is one of the main features of the garden was actually a colourbond shed and they transformed it into the beautiful nursery and homewares space that it is now. It is filled with stunning natural light, stained glass windows, flowers and vintage homewares.
The White Cottage is open to the public Tuesday - Sunday, 9am-5pm where visitors can pick their own fresh flowers, explore the gardens and purchase items from the vintage wares and also from the nursery. For those that don’t have a garden they can come to the cottage and pick their own varieties, such a priceless thing to do! I explored the garden and got to experience this first hand, the smells, the nature, the sounds, it was glorious.
The garden is a passion for both Mandy & Hamish, where they share the duties between them. Hamish does the maintenance on the garden and heavy lifting while Mandy taken great pride in planting, designing and styling the homewares store. The garden is filled with 120 David Austin Roses, 80 Peony Roses, foxgloves, sweet peas and all cottage perennial flowers.
On occasions Mandy hosts floral workshops and painting workshops for those of the community and people from the around the region attend. She has a great following on instagram, great branding and people come from far and wide to see the gardens.
If you’re in the region, it’s a MUST SEE! See some images below.
Em x
