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
