Eliza Rogers is a florist with a love for using local and foraged flowers and weeds for weddings and installations.

Where in Hobart do you live? In a plant-filled 70s townhouse in South Hobart. It’s a lovely space with all the greenery and giant windows. It feels a bit like living inside a human-sized terrarium.

What’s the best thing about Hobart?The close proximity to nature! Be it bush, beach or even just the verdant, weed-covered corners of the rivulet – there are so many wild and beautiful places to explore right on my doorstep.

And the worst? That the long days of summer don’t last forever…I don’t mind the cold, but I do miss the daylight in the deepest part of winter.

Tell us a little about your work? I’m a florist with a focus on working with seasonal, local-grown and foraged flowers. Whether I’m arranging flowers for a wedding, doing a delivery for a dinner party, or installing seasonal, everlasting botanicals for a home or Airbnb, it’s important to me that my materials are local to the area and mirror the environment that I am arranging them in. I especially love working with weeds, I think there’s so much to be appreciated about the movement and resilience of plants that grow wild. It feels nice to elevate humble materials that are often overlooked, like seed-heads and grasses, by foraging and arranging them with intention, to present them in a new context.

Has Covid-19 helped or hindered your work? As someone who spent a lot of time both travelling interstate to teach floristry workshops and also making wedding flowers here in Tassie, Covid definitely threw a spanner in the works for my year. With the uncertainty of travel, many interstate clients had to postpone or cancel their weddings, which meant a loss of work, but it’s given me time to rethink the way I would like to continue working going forwards. It has been a blessing to have more time at home. I would love to connect with more clients locally, to provide flowers for people who care about how their flowers are sourced, and who want to celebrate with flowers (be it a wedding, dinner party, any other special occasion) in a way that is sustainable and nurturing to the environment and our home on earth.

What’s your favourite flower of all time? Hellebores, because they flower for us in winter, while everything else sleeps.

What’s your dream project to work on? After so much time spent working from home this year, I’m really looking forward to moving into a big studio with some other creatives, to collaborate on workshops and have the space to work on some more abstract installations and still life projects. I’ve got a few plans in the pipeline, so hopefully this will be a reality before too long.

I’m inspired by… all the cool things my friends make. Ceramics, paintings, music, furniture. There is so much creative talent in Hobart – it’s very invigorating.

What do you love doing outside work? Hosting dinner parties! Walking my dog, going to yoga, and having a boogie with friends.

Where’s your favourite Hobart eatery? Sunbear for daytime, and Tom McHugo’s for the eve. The staff are so beautiful at both places, each feels like an extension of home.

Drink of choice and where do you head for it? A yuzu margarita at Bar Wa! They are so good!

Guilty pleasure? A bloody mary in the sunshine at Room for a Pony.

What do you never leave home without? Secateurs! I’d like to travel to… Right now, it’s home to northern New South Wales to see my family.

If I didn’t live in Hobart I’d live… Maybe the south coast of NSW, or somewhere in the Northern Territory… quite a contrast, but both places I love!

Favourite Hobart secret? The secret stash of honeysuckle that grows wild in abundance… in a location that I won’t disclose here. Heh!

Quote to live by? “Start where you are” – Pema Chodron. Also the title of one of her books, which talks about having compassion and acceptance in the moment, just as you are. That [has] been a very helpful lesson to me in 2020.

You can follow Eliza on Instagram at @natural_lize.