As the owner of Buds on Buderim I’ve always prided myself on a stunning shop, great customer service and honesty. We always go by ‘if I wouldn’t buy it, why would my customers?’. This is why I want to educate my customers and let you know that the flower industry will be changing now because of COVID-19 but also because, like anything, things change overtime.

Unfortunately, the flower industry has not only been affected by COVID-19, but also mother nature. With social distancing restrictions and people being unable to visit loved ones, flowers are a very traditional service that has come back to life. Flowers help people celebrate a whole array of occasions including births and birthdays, anniversaries and just bringing a smile to a loved one. However, this means that flowers are in high demand which is amazing for your local florist.

The flower industry relies heavily on imports across the world. Buds on Buderim is very lucky and has a number of local flower farms on the Sunshine Coast, but we still buy imports as QLD does not have the greatest flower availability in Australia. However, due to the droughts and fires across Australia, our poor farmers have been struggling to keep up with the demand. In addition to this, Australia is the most expensive country to grow flowers. All of these reasons combined has put even more pressure on our poor local farmers. Freight has a significant role to play in the increase of flower prices, and unfortunately QLD isn’t as lucky as NSW and VIC with flower prices and are more expensive than them. Australia is a very big country and is far away from most others. With limited flights both domestic and international, cargo space is very limited, in very high demand, and has become very expensive meaning our suppliers are challenged with even shipping flowers, let alone doing it cheap.

At Buds on Buderim we have doubled our orders from our local suppliers which we love. This means flower variety will be reduced and we will be going back to basics, but with far fresher flowers. We must evolve with this change for the foreseeable future, and this means that, for example, an $85 bouquet will look very different in size and flowers as it did 4 months ago, but will last longer.

This is why we don’t put up photos of flower designs claiming “this is exactly what you will receive”, as floristry doesn’t work like that, especially at Buds on Buderim. We are just being honest with our customers; we don’t like to promise you something we are at all uncertain of as flowers are very unpredictable.

We understand that flowers are an expensive purchase, but if history has proved anything, it’s that nothing quite says love, care and support like flowers. When purchasing seasonal flowers and with proper care, you would be surprised that flowers will last longer than a week. If you don’t think flowers suit your needs, we also have lots of locally grown plants, locally made gifts and home décor.

We hope this helps you understand and gives a little insight into the current state of the floristry industry, and we always ask you to give us a call if you are unsure. We love our job; we LOVE flowers and our we love our customers.

Thank you, Mia and the Buds on Buderim Girls