End of an era for florist Annie Dillon

She worked under her mother for 15 years at another florist down the road, which is now called Fab Flowers.

“Sometimes it was difficult, being a mother-daughter relationship and other times it was wonderful with plenty of laughs and good times,” she said.

Ms Dillon said it was a great working environment, as was being in the industry itself in general.

She discussed leaving her mother’s business and the industry before returning to her passion to create the Annie Dillon Florist shop.

“I left, was made redundant in the business I was was working for, then I thought I might as well go back and work in floristry, which is my passion” she said.

“I do love it, but there comes a time when you have to get out.”

“I’ve loved working in the Kyabram community. It’s a great community town.”

Ms Dillon was born and raised in Kyabram and she said the town had expanded massively in that time.

“It has really expanded and in the future it will just boom as new estates are popping up here,” she said.

Ms Dillon said she and her partner were both retired and planned to travel the country for the next couple of months before returning to Kyabram to see what was next.

Eve Gillard will be taking over the business, retaining the name Annie Dillon Florist and Gifts for the next few weeks until she can get new signage.

The business will be changed to the name “Spirited Flame” and will still sell all the usual products as well as huge range of candles, which is a project Ms Gillard started to pass the time during COVID-19 lockdowns.

“I started out making candles during the lockdowns, which became my COVID hobby ’cause I was bored having to shut down my previous business.

“People then started wanting to buy my candles, so I thought I must make them pretty good then.”

Ms Gillard has 70 different types of candles that are available for purchase.

She is new to the town and said the purchase of the business was an “impulse” decision, but she was excited to meet all the locals.

Ms Gillard said she would try to keep everything similar, but there was “only one Annie”, so she would be doing some things a little different.