“When he said he was throwing them out I said no way!”
Joost Bakker
Dutch-born, Melbourne based Bakker, along with a band of merry helpers filled trucks with the sub-standard crop and crept into the laneway famed for its street art.
The florist then spent the early hours of this morning lining the sides with crates overflowing with thousands of tulips in full bloom, beneath a vibrant canvas of urban art.
“For me this installation is about making people aware that there’s a thriving industry with more than a thousand growers in this country,” said Bakker on his Instagram feed as light hit the site this morning. “It’s currently under a lot of pressure from imported flowers with some estimating close to 70% of flowers sold in Australia are imported.”
As the day unfolded, visitors to the site were invited to "pick their own" blooms and the installation gradually began to deplete as hundreds of people joyfully filled their arms with the lush red blooms, with hundreds more enjoying the spectacle on social media, spreading Bakker's words of community and sustainability.
“When you buy flowers please ask ‘are they grown locally? Are they in season?’ These two things make a purchase much more sustainable,” Bakker encouraged.
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