Grown from this corner.
A corner garden catalysing how Melbourne gardens, celebrates and grows the next generation of gardeners.
An engineer who found the golden trifecta in gardening: maths, science and beauty.
WHO I AM
I came to flowers the long way — through tissue engineering, social procurement and a decade of working out what communities actually need, versus what they're given.
We moved to Kingsville at the end of 2023, into an Edwardian corner house that came with decades of concrete, compacted soil and a garden that hadn't been asked to do much. The first year was mostly manual labour, removing paving (so. much. concrete), and getting the soil back into something worth planting in. Neighbours watched from over the fence. Some helped (with a jackhammer). When my three-year-old and I set up a table outside and sold over 200 seedlings to the street, The Corner Garden had a name, a community and a reason to keep growing.
It started because I wanted flowers and plants actually grown here — in Melbourne's west, in our soil, in our seasons. Not flown in from Ecuador. Not dyed, forced or sitting in cold storage. What comes out of this garden is what's ready right now, because that's the only version worth growing.
“Tissue engineering, social procurement, and then, inexplicably or inevitably, flowers. The common thread was always people.”
DR FRANCESCA MACLEAN, THE CORNER GARDEN
I might not be designing nanomaterials anymore, but my engineering mindset shows up in how I plan seasonal rotations, how I think about school program outcomes, and how I approach a garden design, health and maintenance: as a system that has to work across twelve months, not just look good in the photos.
1173
SEEDLINGS
200+
VARIETIES GROWN
3
SCHOOL PROGRAMS
7
POSTCODES SERVED
THE GARDEN
A corner garden in Kingsville. A destination for pollinators, flower lovers and gardeners big and small.
The Corner Garden is a real place a corner house in Kingsville where I grow speciality cut flowers across the full Melbourne season. I transformed my garden from lawn and agapanthus to a thriving pollinator haven, turning our heavy clay soil into something teeming with life from below.
Everything starts from seed or tuber, grown to the point where it's worth cutting, then cut and delivered on the day. My flowers haven’t been sprayed with pesticides, flown in from overseas, sprayed with more chemicals at biosecurity borders, and then stored in a fridge for two weeks. These are the flowers I’ve trialled, selected and grown specifically because they're exceptional in our conditions, in our soil: Amaranth Caudatus Red, Cosmos Lemonade, Scabiosa Black Knight, Zinnia Isabellina Creamy Yellow.
The garden is also where Growing Gardeners was born, watching children’s delight in discovering the garden through everything they can see, touch, smell (and cut) and nurture over time. Growing Gardeners builds skills for life and gives kids screen-free learning that does nothing but good for their brains, their community and the environment.
THREE WAYS TO GROW WITH US
Same philosophy. Different contexts
SLOW FLOWERS
Cut flower arrangements and subscriptions
Weekly and fortnightly subscriptions or one-off arrangements built around what's flowering that week. Varieties change with the season, so you'll never get the same bunch twice and every stem is named.
Arrangements for the everyday, the special day, or local businesses.
Available for pick up from Kingsville.
Shop the current season →
GARDEN
Fine gardening services
Site assessments, soil health improvement, seasonal planting plans, locally grown seedlings, as well as ongoing maintenance for gardens that are healthy and beautiful, from the soil life to the flowers.
Designed to work with Melbourne's west: the soil, the microclimate, the fauna and the lifestyles.
Book fine gardening →
SCHOOLS
Growing Gardeners school program
Hands-on growing programs for primary schools in Kingsville, Brunswick East and beyond.
Free seedlings and gardening guidance, funded by our monthly Pollintaor Packs, to provide schools a sustainable and ongoing garden, sustainability and environment learning program.
Find out more →
BACKGROUND
The long way round to the garden.
The skills that make The Corner Garden work aren't all learned in a garden. Engineering taught me to think in systems: what happens in February affects what's ready in October, that the fungal activity in your soil is the reason the flowers look the way they do. You can't separate the parts.
Social procurement taught me that where things come from, and who benefits, is always worth asking. That a business which creates value beyond its own bottom line is worth building. The community it sits in will notice.
Both of those things show up in how I run this business.
Engineering background
Seasonal planning, soil health, crop rotation and garden design approached as systems problems, not intuition alone.
Social procurement experience
Creating value in local supply chains informs a grown-not-flown sourcing ethic. Local matters: economics, environment and community.
200+ varieties trialled and grown
A curated growing list informed by my extensive experience knowing what performs in Melbourne’s environment across the year.
Community supported education
The Growing Gardeners creates a sustainable garden integration in the curriculum, supporting schools with seedlings and expertise for free.
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
Kingsville grown. Available to the whole of Melbourne.
The Corner Garden is based in Kingsville but serves Yarraville, Seddon, Footscray, Brunswick East and wherever in Melbourne you'd like a garden that gives back to you, your neighbours and the pollinators.
If you want to know what's in season right now, or talk through a garden that's been frustrating you for years, the best place to start is a conversation.