13 November 2022

Trading the corporate life for flower fields, and learning to take it slow

Writer: GEORGIA MERTON

Photographer: CLAIRE MOSSONG

Gisborne’s Kate Briant worked in the agri-corporate world before making a big lifestyle and career change after having her first child.

ClaireMossong-Kate-The-Rural-Florist-5497

Kate, 30, describes her former self as a “highly strung overachiever”. This time three years ago, she was working flat-tack for a large corporate fruit seller in Gisborne – busy, as she says, climbing the ladder. With her husband Blake working at a similar pace for his family orchard business, it was a hectic life. “I thrived, but fresh produce is a fast-paced, just-in-time industry, so I carried a lot of stress,” says Kate, a straight-talker with an easy laugh. “I worked at what I can see now were unsustainable levels. There was a lot of baked beans on toast for dinner!”

Things look pretty different for Kate these days. She grows and sells flowers for a living, at a much slower pace, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. And while she loves what she does with her business, The Rural Florist, it doesn’t rule her life. “My career had been a huge part of my identity and that was something I really battled with when I fell pregnant – that fear of becoming ‘just a mum,’ even though that’s the most important job in the world,” says Kate.

Her son, George, has just turned two, and her journey into motherhood has not only laid those fears to rest, but served as the catalyst for Kate’s lifestyle and career change. “When I had George, the switch just flicked. When he was about six months old, I had the opportunity to go back part time to my corporate role and that instigated a lot of soul searching about how I wanted to spend the best years of my children’s lives,” she says. “We were in a privileged position, and I didn’t have to [go back].”

ClaireMossong-Kate-The-Rural-Florist-5456

As it does for many parents, becoming a mum shifted Kate’s perspective on what was important in life. “It was slowing down as much as I could and getting outside of the fishpond, looking back at what I was doing and going, ‘Hang on, this isn’t sustainable and it’s not the life I want to live.’ I want my children to work hard but not at all costs, which was what I was doing.”

So Kate decided to give selling flowers a crack. She’d been growing them in her garden for years, always giving her creations away to friends and family. Since setting up The Rural Florist, her home-grown bouquets and dried flowers are delivered all around town, direct to her customers from her quarter-hectare flower field. Kate is still ambitious, and before she enlisted the help of a local veggie-box delivery service, all drop-offs were done by her, with George in the back of the car. “I don’t do things in small doses. I tend to bite off more than I can chew and then am very stubborn and determined to get it done!” she laughs. “But if it fails, I don’t stress about it anymore.”

George hangs out with her in the garden, which means everything takes twice as long – and that’s exactly how Kate likes it. “I get so much joy watching George playing outside with me. He’s completely unhelpful but it’s this beautiful little thing we do where he’s going along behind me pulling up the flowers, pulling up the lily bulbs, getting covered in dirt. It brings back all the childhood memories of how I was raised and I feel like I’m back in that carefree stage of life,” she says. The business is coming into its second season now, and whilst it’s doing well, it’s the changes in Kate’s spirit that she values most.

“Everyone comments all the time on how much I’ve chilled out,” she says. “I’m the same person, but very mellow now. Just, ‘What will be, will be.’” While she admits she still suffers from imposter syndrome in her new life, she is able to treat herself with a new gentleness. “A huge part of what I’m doing is for the sake of maintaining positive mental health,” says Kate. “Blake and I talk about this a lot – finding the balance with work and physical and mental well-being.”

Gardening has always been a source of solace for Kate, and a creative outlet – though she says she didn’t really realise it was creative until people started pointing it out. “I just like growing things, whether it’s a seed or a cutting,” she says. When she moved back to Gisborne to be with Blake in 2013, after finishing her agriculture studies at Lincoln University, all her spare time was put into gardening. “Having grown up on a farm [sheep and beef in Gisborne] and working in the hort sector, I’m all about growing: fruit trees, animals, flowers – it all came naturally,” Kate says.

ClaireMossong-Kate-The-Rural-Florist-5426

It may sound dreamy, but The Rural Florist’s journey hasn’t been a particularly easy one. Before Kate and Blake moved to their new home and vineyard, which is an extension of the family orcharding business five minutes up the road, in February this year, her flower field at their previous property had flooded three times over the summer. “It was horrendous. I’m basically starting from scratch again. I just laughed – if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.”

This mindset is something Kate has worked hard on, and continues to develop. “People say, ‘How can you keep so positive when you’ve lost all of this to the floods, or the sheep have eaten hundreds of tulips?’ I guess I’ve got better things to focus my time and energy on,” she says. “Shit happens. I try to look forward and think, ‘What are we going to do about it?’ It is easy to dwell on the negative.”

While a good attitude is crucial, Kate says she couldn’t do any of it without Blake, and both of their supportive families. The two had been long-term friends before getting together in Kate’s last year of university, and were married three years ago. “Blake is the husband of my dreams, and he has been such a supportive partner and father,” she smiles. “Especially with the house move – he’s helped dig up, transport and replant my garden and flower field and spent hours and hours at the end of a post-hole borer!”

Lately, most of this extra mucking-in on Blake’s part has been because Kate is hapū with their next baby, due mid-October. With that in mind, this summer will be a quiet one for The Rural Florist. And that suits Kate just fine.