Photography: Sacha Kahaki
Some would consider slowing down at the age of 82, but Hamilton florist Gail Jones is entering her second act as a TikTok sensation, sharing her 60 years of floral knowledge with the world.
“If I go to the retirement home, I’d be dead in six months because I’d be bored out of my bloody trolley,” she laughs.
“I’ve got to have an interest.”
As an award-winning floral artist, Gail is no stranger to hosting TV gardening segments, but she admits it took some persuading for her to make online videos.
“I had a marketing girl and she said, ‘I really think you should do TikTok.’ I said, ‘I’m too old for that, I couldn’t possibly! That’s a young person’s thing.’”
Eventually, Gail was convinced and now her clips sharing easy tips on how to care for flowers often attract more than a million views. She is just one of the 65,000 Kiwi businesses using TikTok
to reach new customers.
From TikTok fame to trailblazer beginnings
“TikTok has grown and grown and grown – it’s unbelievable,” she enthuses about her new-found fame.
“Every day, I have someone come in and tell me they’ve seen my videos.”
How it all began
Gail has always been one to buck standards. At the age of 18, she gained her floristry qualifications and was brimming with passion, but no one would hire her. So in 1963, at 19, she opened Gail’s Floral Studio – with the support of her parents Thelma and William O’Brien – something very unusual for a young woman of the time.
She recalls, “I said to Dad, ‘What am I going to do?’ And he said, ‘Start your own and I’ll back you.’ Women in those days were teachers or nurses – they didn’t go into business. So I was really quite an oddball, but I didn’t care, I was doing what I wanted.”
A family that backed her dream
It wasn’t easy but Gail was determined to pursue her dream. For the first five years, she paid herself only 10 shillings a week and put everything else back into the shop. Mum Thelma was her first employee.
“Even though my family backed me, it was hard. My mother did all the deliveries – she was very good to me. I was lucky.”
Taking her talent to the world stage
While Hamilton has always been home, Gail has seen the world thanks to her mastery of the floral arts. In 1977, she represented New Zealand at the Inter Flora World Cup – the world’s largest floristry competition – in Nice, France. In her first-ever showing at the competition, she won second place. It remains one of her proudest achievements.
“I have the Freedom of the City of Nice [the highest honour bestowed for exceptional service] – isn’t that unreal?!” exclaims the former president of the Waikato Business Chamber.
“I haven’t even got the freedom of my own city!”
Where floristry took her
It opened doors for her on the floristry world stage. She honed her craft studying at the American Institute of Floral Design and the Masters’ School in the Netherlands, and exhibited her work in Hong Kong and Hamburg. It was on these travels that she met the love of her life, Ian Jones, in the early ’80s.
Gail shares, “He’d been in Dubai for 20 years and didn’t want to go back to the desert. That’s when I met him!”
Love, loss and starting over
As a fiercely independent woman, she thought she would never marry.
But at 40, Gail said “I do”. The couple enjoyed many happy years on the stunning Tamahere estate he bought for her, which she has grown into another lucrative business – growing and exporting dried flowers, running floral education courses and a wedding venue.
A devastating loss
While Gail’s constant refrain is how wonderful her life has been, that doesn’t mean it has been without deep pain. In 1990, only five years after they wed, tragedy struck and Ian was killed in a horrific car accident.
“It devastated me,” Gail recalls.
“It took me a while to get over it. I walked around in a sort of fog for probably six months.”
Looking ahead with no plans to slow down
While it was an incredibly difficult time, Gail, an eternal optimist, says she was more fortunate than most in dealing with the loss.
“I was lucky because I was my own person and it made it a little easier to deal with,” she reflects.
As she looks to her next chapter, Gail accepts she needs to lighten the load – but only a little. While she’s happy to pass her estate onto a new owner, she’s not ready to say goodbye to her shop just yet.
“I love what I do and I am excited to go in every day,” she smiles.
“I’ve done a lot of really good things – I’ve travelled the world and I’ve had a wonderful life.”
Follow Gail @gailsflorals on TikTok.
