How do beautiful flowers turn into food forests in schools?
Good question.
The Natural Leaders OG crew set themselves a big vision: food forests in schools across the Wellington region. One in three Wellington families experience food insecurity, and they wanted to do something about it.
They started at Maidstone Intermediate, then Newtown School. Pretty quickly they learned how expensive fruit trees are, so they got creative. They taught themselves to graft their own trees, and now they're having a go at running a micro flower farm to raise money for rootstock and the rest of the plants each guild needs.
Along the way they're learning regenerative soil management and how to care for flowers organically.
Instead of doom scrolling, they've taken up bloom scrolling. They settled on dahlias, have gathered 170 varieties of tubers so far, and are getting the grow bags ready.
We call it The Flowers for Good Project.
How you can help
Donate compost
We need about 8 cubic metres to fill 200 grow bags and get our nursery started.
Buy our dahlia plants
Want to grow your own? From the end of October we'll have young dahlia plants for sale at our flower cart on State Highway 2, at Plateau Road near the Speedway. Some will be cuttings from named culitvars and others will be lucky dip seedlings
Buy locally grown bouquets from December
Florists and flower farm workers overseas handle stems carrying pesticide residues every day. We'd rather grow flowers nobody needs gloves for. Our students are learning to grow flowers in a way that feeds the soil, and every bunch you buy goes back into the food forests.
Volunteer
Flower lovers
- Remember quilting bees? We're starting bouquet bees. Come along with a group and help us make bouquets and keep the cart stocked.
Lend us your front garden.
- We're looking for more growing space. If you've got a sunny patch you're not using, we'd love to grow flowers for the cart in it. Must be a property that practices organic principles that doesn't spray pesticides or herbicides.
Host a flower cart on a streetside.
- Our Betty the Builders crew (girls learning to build) are making flower carts. If you're keen to keep one filled over summer, we'll build one for the front of your place. Each cart has a QR code so people can pay, and every dollar goes to the food forests and the Natural Leaders programme. Your green thumb and extra blooms ends up feeding families in need as well as brightening the street and creating opportunities for connection with your community.
Support a Food Forest
- Are you connected with a local school that doesn't have a food forest but would like to have one? We can help design it and provide trees and a team to help install one, but we need people to help look after it as it grows, especially over summer when everyone is away. Would you be interested in adopting a school's forest and helping to manage it?
Natural Leaders students planting out Newtown School food forest in term 3 of 2026.
Reference:
NZ Food insecurity statistics - https://www.nzfoodnetwork.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/NZFN-Hunger-Monitor-2025-Digital.pdf