Thousands of fragrant David Austin and Hybrid Tea roses, of various colours, grow in fields in the rich volcanic soil before they are hand picked and cut for market.

A small group of workers rise early in the morning to tend to and pick the flowers, then work from the family farm shed, built in 1880, sorting orders of flowers for florists.

Kristy Tippett, owner of Soho Rose Farm, took possession of the roses last year.

A florist of 10 years, Ms Tippett had always wished to grow something herself, before the perfect opportunity arose.

Ms Tippett was commuting to Melbourne to her job at Cecilia Fox, when one of the farms she sourced flowers from, Soho Rose Farm, in Drysdale, near Portarlington, was put up for sale.

The property sold, but the business did not.

"All of the roses were going to be bulldozed," Ms Tippett said. "It would have been a real loss to the floristry industry."

So, she and her husband Brock went to the property to have a look and ended up coming home set on the idea to transfer every single rose bush - all 8000 of them - from Drysdale to Dean.

"It was a pretty massive move," she said. "It was amazing and has worked out so well. The move went really well, the plants have done incredibly. We've done nothing to them really and they have thrived."

Her roses are unique heritage varieties of garden roses and have an invigorating rose fragrance. Grown in the paddock, they grow more slowly than in a glasshouse and require more maintenance due to the increased susceptibility to changes in weather.

Garden varieties and hothouse roses differ in size and often have different stems. Some hothouse roses have a fragrance, while others do not.

"Because I'm a florist as well and have dealt with a lot of brides I know that when they pick their bridal bouquet they want it to smell really beautiful. These roses give that nostalgic feeling and that is the beauty of it," she said.

Growing up, Ms Tippett was always interested in gardening as her mum was very experienced.

Moving from floristry, where she was dealing with only the blooms, to going full circle to learning about how to actually grow and tend to the rose bushes, has been a learning experience.

"It's been good for me to do something else other than potatoes," she laughed.

Her husband's family is happy with the addition of roses to the mixed farm and her children love to play with the leftover flowers in the shed after her husband has taken orders off to the market each week.

They are entrepreneurial and make potpourri.

"You always have to have something going on at the farm because everything is so seasonal," she said.

Ms Tippett, along with Sandy McKinley from Acre of Roses in Trentham, are attending a rose masterclass at Grace Rose Farm - which grows fragrant, antique and organic roses - in Santa Ynez, California, this week.

Similarly, the owners of Grace Rose Farm re-located their roses - 5000 of them - to a bigger parcel of land - a former equestrian farm.

"I really want to go to America because they do exactly what we do here - some of the same variety and some a little bit different - but they do it on a much bigger scale than what I do, and organically," she said.

Grace Rose Farm is big. It harvested and processed about 30,000 stems each week in the 2018 rose season. This is almost four times as much as Soho Rose Farm.

During the masterclass, attendees will learn how to grow and fertilise organically, as well as how to organically manage pests and diseases.

Soho Rose Farm is as sustainable as possible, but Ms Tippett is keen to learn more about what else she can do with her farm, and bring those skills back to the region.

A special guest will be celebrity rosarian Dan Bifano, who tends to the gardens of the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Barbra Streisand.

Ms Tippett works with about six other girls who grow, cut and sell the flowers at wholesale markets.

"We are constantly looking after the plants so they can produce as much as they can. So for me, going to America is really invaluable to see that side of how they maintain as many plants as what they have organically."

Next season Ms Tippett will incorporate new rose varieties at her farm, in an effort to continue to strengthen the locally-grown flower industry.

"People want to know where their food comes from, so why not flowers too?"