Spotlight| Ever & Maple - Opportunity Knocking
Published: 16 November 2022
Photography by Fleur and Mae Photography
In The Garden City, it's easy to take the incredible floristry we can access for granted. We spoke with Marissa Thompson from Ever + Maple about her journey from vintage Kombi to shiny new shopfront, and what she's learned about the industry in just a few short years.
TELL US ABOUT HOW EVER + MAPLE STARTED.
In September of 2019 we purchased our first home, an inner city worker's cottage about two minutes from town. We came to find that our little "renovators' delight" had in it’s time actually been an award-winning Carnival of Flowers garden and housed over 220 rose bushes across both the front and back yards.
My husband Steve started looking after the roses and growing other seasonal flowers. At the suggestion of his mum I started an Instagram page, Grenier Roses and we started listing bunches of our garden roses for sale. I was taken aback at just how popular they were.
As our interest in flowers grew, I completed my Certificate III in Floristry and we started searching for a vintage Kombi that we could transform into a flower truck and do pop ups at markets and events across Toowoomba and South East Queensland. From there we progressed to opening up our florist shop.
WHAT MADE YOU TAKE THE LEAP FROM TRUCK TO BRICKS AND MORTAR?
There were a couple of factors that helped make our decision to open up the store. It was becoming a little more difficult to navigate the weekend markets due to our children’s sporting commitments and we were experiencing growing demand for daily flower and gift deliveries. When the perfect shopfront position unexpectedly became available we just said, "let’s do it!" and went for it.
Having also previously owned a children’s retail store for many years, it felt like a natural progression. Thankfully, we have had so much local support it’s been incredible and we haven’t look back.
ARE YOU FROM HERE ORIGINALLY?
We have lived in Toowoomba since we were children so are well and truly Toowoomba locals. It’s such a beautiful town, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, especially now we have children. The great schools and many parks make it a great little town to raise a family.
WHAT MAKES EVER + MAPLE DIFFERENT IN THE GARDEN CITY?
I like to think we are bridging the gap between florist and gift shop and are providing a place for our customers to come and select beautiful high quality flowers and gifts.
It was important to me when we opened that our flower and gift choices were modern, on trend and worthy of celebrating or commemorating life’s many milestones both happy and sad. I think our flowers and gifts really reflect that.
A facet of our business that has proved really popular is our Create Your Own Giftbox station. Our customers can come in-store and select gifts tailored specifically to the gift recipient. It’s really special and speaks volumes when we’ve had new customers come into the store to create a gift box having received one themselves.
WHAT DO YOU WISH EVERYONE UNDERSTOOD ABOUT THE FLORISTRY INDUSTRY?
As someone who is fairly new to the industry, my perception was how nice it would be to play with flowers all day – however it is so much more than that!
There’s so much work that goes on behind the scenes especially when you’re both the florist and business owner. From cleaning buckets, early morning market runs, processing the flowers, reflexing roses all before you’ve even created a bouquet of flowers. Being in the floral industry definitely has its challenges but is also incredibly rewarding.
I’m extremely fortunate to have our beautiful store to come to work to each day and wouldn’t change it for anything.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR EVER + MAPLE?
Initially, we will be looking to grow our team, which is really exciting, as well as adding to our ever-expanding gifting range.
Steve will continue to grow seasonal flowers on our small flower patch in Cambooya but the dream is to have our own flower farm where we are supplying also to other local florists.
We have a few new and exciting changes and additions coming to the store soon, but you’ll have to wait and see what these are!
