A November visit to Fat Magpie Farm, where Trudi Reilly grows dahlias, sunflowers and garlic the slow way, working with the land rather than against it.
This November, we set out to explore regional Australia through the people who grow with the land, not against it. Across farms, markets and kitchens, we met makers whose work is shaped by seasonality, care, and a deep respect for nature’s rhythms.
At Fat Magpie Farm, that philosophy lives quietly in the fields: in rows of dahlias and sunflowers, in garlic grown slowly, and in the belief that working with nature yields more than forcing outcomes.
There’s a moment, driving into regional Australia, when the landscape softens you. The pace drops back a gear. The air feels older. And somewhere between the hills and the horizon, you’re reminded that beauty doesn’t always come from what’s designed. Sometimes it’s grown.
Fat Magpie Farm sits in that in-between place. A little pocket of quiet tended by someone who speaks the language of the land without ever raising her voice.
“My interest came from my mother,” Trudi tells us as we step through rows of dahlias, natives and sunflowers. “She’d call every plant by its botanical name.… At the time I wasn’t interested at all.”
She laughs the kind of laugh that says: life has a way of circling back.
The garden that became a way of living
What began as a few herbs for cooking grew into something wider and wilder. A permaculture course at CERES opened a new way of seeing; moving to regional Victoria opened the space to put those ideas into practice.
On this land, Trudi grows not just flowers but possibility: cut flowers for local markets, garlic for the community, sunflowers that turn their faces to the sky on long summer days. Everything is grown with a simple philosophy: work with nature, not against it.
“We’re not slaves to fertiliser,” she says, gently brushing a stem between her fingers. “We have birds. We have insects. They take care of things for us.”
It’s regenerative, intuitive, and deeply local: the kind of growing that feels more like partnership than production.
The quiet magic of regional Australia
There is a particular stillness out here that’s hard to bottle. Rows of bright pink dahlias. A field humming with life. Bundles of freshly cut stems laid out for sorting. It’s not romanticised. It’s real. Soil under nails. Weather as a collaborator. Nature as the co-creator.
Sometimes beauty isn’t designed. It’s grown.
Regional growers like Trudi remind us that beauty doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s shaped by climate, community, and the slow discipline of showing up every day to tend something that can’t be rushed.
Where our values meet the land
At Fig & Bloom, we talk a lot about care, about ritual, and about the work we do as a Melbourne florist, creating moments that feel deeply human. Standing at Fat Magpie Farm, those ideas were no longer language on a page. They were embodied in how Trudi works.
Attention to detail. Respect for seasonality. Producing only what the land can give. These are the quiet values that echo across both our worlds, without needing to be announced.
“This is our little piece of paradise”
As we pack up to leave, Trudi gestures out to the fields: to the birds, the flowers, the rows of garlic stretching further than you’d expect. “This is our little piece of paradise,” she says.
And in that moment, the theme of our November exploration, regional Australia, becomes something tangible. It’s not a place on the map. It’s a way of being: slower, grounded, present. A reminder that behind every bloom, there’s a story. A set of hands. A landscape that shaped it.
Fat Magpie Farm is one of those stories, and we’re grateful Trudi shared it with us.
