By Mikayla van Loon
The Montrose Flower Festival is returning for its third annual event, albeit with a two year break in the middle, encouraging local flower lovers to get creative on Saturday 15 October.
What began as a way of educating people on the importance of bees has turned into a community flower arrangement competition.
The initiator of the event Mary Rowan said when she moved to Montrose eight years ago she had a desire to share her knowledge of gardening with her new community.
“I started with the back garden at my place from scratch. I’ve always been environmentally aware and I was aware that bee populations were under threat so I have planted a lot of bee friendly plants,” she said.
“I thought, the only way I can act locally to help the environment is to maybe give those plants away. So that’s really how it started, me just giving away plants or the desire to.”
Since then the Montrose Township Group has come on board to help grow Ms Rowan’s initial concept.
“The second time we ran it, we had the flower arranging festival, and it was hugely successful. So then there was nothing for two years like everything else and I thought, well, ‘I’d like to have one more try at it’. So that’s what’s happening this year,” Ms Rowan said.
Entrants are invited to make a flower arrangement of their choice, whether in a floral bouquet, hat or headband to be dropped off at the Montrose Historical Cottage between 9.30am and 10.30am on the Saturday, with judging expected to happen from 11.30am.
“It’s an amazing chance to bring people together who are concerned about the same thing or even make more people aware of how bees are under threat,” Ms Rowan said.
“It’s market day, so people will come and look at all the flowers and we can talk to them at the same time.
“We give out leaflets from the council about native plants…[and] that would be our eventual aim, to encourage local native plants for bees because we’re really only looking after the European bees, not the Australian ones.”
As someone who has always had a passion for flowers, whether in art or gardening, Ms Rowan said bees are attracted to anything blue, with the forget-me-nots and bluebells currently blooming and salvias on the way.
Ms Rowan herself has 40 bee-friendly plant seedlings ready to give away on the day, with local nurseries also expected to get onboard to donate plants as well.
On top of spreading the message around the importance of flowers and gardens for bees, Ms Rowan said all flower arrangements will be given to Mercy Place aged care to help bring some joy to the residents.
With activities for children, giveaways and prizes, Ms Rowan said it truly is a community event and something for everyone.
