Heaven scent

Some­how you just expect a flor­ist to live in a home that echoes the vibrancy, fra­grance and artistry of her daily life. Ingrid Pritchard, the director/owner of Scent Flor­al Boutique, doesn’t dis­ap­point. Imme­di­ately, I notice the appeal­ing scent of Ingrid’s home, thanks to the pres­ence of her many candles and oils, and the inev­it­able flowers dot­ted all around. She lives in a charm­ing villa in Petone with her dogs, Sif and Jessie, and cats, Poppy and Rosie, and has just fin­ished revamp­ing the interi­or of her home, includ­ing paint­ing and doing up the kit­chen, bath­room and bed­rooms. Since mov­ing in four years ago, Ingrid has trans­formed the villa, open­ing it up with a softer col­our palette and deck­ing it out in a romantic/vintage aes­thet­ic, cap­tur­ing the age of the home, but with all con­tem­por­ary comforts.

While she enjoys the nat­ur­al light­ness of most of the house, one of her favour­ite rooms is also the darkest. She calls it “The Snug”, and as the name sug­gests, it is a room for nest­ling up in dur­ing the winter. It’s loaded with cush­ions and a spot­light for reading.

Ingrid enjoys enter­tain­ing and hav­ing people over for din­ner, but she admits that she’ll pass up on the cook­ing in place of a trip to one of the many take-out options in Jack­son Street. “It’s a New York City thing that I still relate to,” she says.

A born and bred Wel­ling­to­ni­an, Ingrid spent many years out of New Zea­l­and, after gain­ing qual­i­fic­a­tions in nurs­ing. Much of that time was spent “trav­el­ling a lot in the States and South Amer­ica”. Along the way, there was a career change from nurse to flor­ist. Ingrid says she’s always been cre­at­ive, but that nurs­ing has giv­en her a great base and provides a good back­ground for any oth­er occupation.

When asked if she’d ever con­sider going back to nurs­ing, Ingrid insists she’s found her voca­tion in flor­istry, which itself had some­thing of a serendip­it­ous begin­ning. Sev­en years ago, she came down to Wellington
from Auck­land for a job inter­view, but instead found the site where she set up her retail shop in the city’s busy CBD.

Her John­son Street busi­ness is only one part of her bud­ding empire. “I also have events and wed­dings, and then I have cor­por­ate cli­ents, so there’s three parts to the busi­ness. I do a lot of them­ing for events, like cor­por­ate parties, and I’ve also done interi­ors of friends’ houses.”

It is now com­ing up to the busy sea­son for Ingrid’s busi­ness, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for her to find time to do the desired land­scap­ing for her garden. How­ever, that doesn’t mean she won’t be able to con­tin­ue tak­ing pleas­ure in the bloom­ing of a dazzling range of flor­al favour­ites, such as jas­mine, hibis­cus and winter rose, not to men­tion the 60 hydrangeas that will reign supreme in a garden truly fit for a florist.