Saskia Havekes.

Kylie Kwong introduces us to some of her hospitality heroes and the individuals helping to grow a stronger community. This month, we meet florist Saskia Havekes of Grandiflora.

Saskia has always had a very strong sense of community, and for many, she is like family. She intuitively understands each of her clients’ needs and genuinely wants to make people happy. Saskia is an artist; her practice of making tables and spaces beautiful plays a vital role in the overall success of a space or event. We’ve been great friends and collaborators for almost 20 years, and love workshopping our small businesses together. Most importantly, you can always feel her warm heart in her work.

Flowers manage to intersect our lives at the true peaks and troughs. The one person who knows this all too well is florist Saskia Havekes of Grandiflora in Sydney’s Potts Point. “It’s quite overwhelming when you read what’s going on in everyone’s lives,” says Havekes. “You feel honoured to pass on these messages. We dip into people’s worlds for a bit, and get a bird’s eye view of these moments.”

Havekes started out in advertising before venturing into the world of floristry, but flowers have been a constant in her life. “I’ve always been absolutely crazy about flowers,” she says. “My father was a painter – we always had beautiful still-life imagery and flowers around us.” After a four-year stint in New York, Havekes returned to Sydney and enrolled in a full-time intensive floristry course. From here she found work experience with Alison Coates, a florist-turnedsculptor and mentor, before branching out to work in gardens and at the markets. “I could not get enough: the smells, the sights, the scale,” she says. Five years on she met Eva Seltner and together they opened their shop in Potts Point, in a former Lawrence dry cleaners. “Everyone said, ‘You’re crazy, there’s nothing there,’ but we just went for it.” Havekes also found out she was pregnant with her first daughter just before the shop opened. “I look back on those times and wonder how the hell I did it,” she says. “But I did, and I learnt a lot.”

Since opening Grandiflora, Havekes’s achievements have wildly outgrown the shop. From fashion shows with Zimmermann in New York and Dries Van Noten in Singapore, to celebrating landmark moments with her friend and collaborator Kylie Kwong. She has also worked with floral rock stars like Jeff Leatham on actor Eva Longoria’s wedding. Havekes has forged her own name as Australian floral royalty, writing four books, creating her own perfume range and opening Grandiflora outposts in Perth and Singapore.

Back in Sydney, Havekes’s eldest daughter Ginger now works at Grandiflora full-time, too. “It’s been lovely and challenging. But I’m up for the growth.

It’s not always like The Sound of Music – but that’s the beauty of it.” Time spent in or out of the shop with Ginger and her second daughter, Sunday, is what Havekes values the most.

Beyond her daughters, Havekes’s reliable growers at the market are like a family fold – it’s a relationship she has been growing for 25 years. Three times a week she’s up at 3.50am to head out to the Sydney Flower Markets in Flemington. “I rarely pass my market trip to anyone else,” she says. “I like to be there myself. My growers know all about my family, I know all about theirs.” Likewise, the Grandiflora staff are family to Havekes. “They’re great support and a sounding board.”

Havekes also understands the profound joy flowers bring to families, which is part of why she developed REFlora. The sustainable concept takes flowers from large-scale events and repurposes them into posies and bouquets to be delivered to nursing homes, women’s refuges and schools. Havekes was inspired after seeing a similar concept while working at New York Fashion Week, and also took cues more locally from Ronni Kahn’s work with OzHarvest. Now, Grandiflora offers the repurposing of flowers for all events. “We’ve had the most beautiful feedback, especially from nursing homes. Flowers are a great connector for the elderly.” No matter the nature of her work, Havekes manages to reach the hearts of people, be it through ambitious large-scale artistic installations, bold bouquets to punctuate intimate personal milestones or repurposed colourful posies for the elderly.

Havekes continues to push the boundaries of floristry, all while ensuring each arrangement is as important and beautiful as the last.

“I look back on those times and wonder how the hell I did it. But I did, and I learnt a lot.”