Farming couple in WA successfully build native wildflower business

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Chrysanthemum is the traditional flower to give mums on Mother’s Day. But this year, you might want to consider the everlasting daisy.  The Australian natives are prized for their long lasting "shape and colour" when cut and dried. In Western Australian, two wheatbelt farmers have built a daisy empire to honour her daughters.

Transcript

00:00In the golden fields of WA's Wheatbelt, something different is growing at Mobrop.

00:10The farming town 300km south of Perth has seen its share of change over the years.

00:17Traditionally this used to be just a merino sheep area up until the early 90s and then

00:22we've moved into broadacre cropping.

00:24But among the fields of barley, canola and wheat, one farm is growing something new, something

00:30pink.

00:35That's me sneaking a few hectares of land and squeezing Everlastings in.

00:45Jen Edgerton-Warburton is a former land care coordinator and one of Australia's largest

00:49suppliers of Everlasting Daisy seeds.

00:52I got some seed in my past job from 20 years ago and we just threw it on the ground and

00:59see how it went and it's just flourished since then.

01:0322 year old Lucinda shares the name of her parents business while her little sister Zara

01:08has a product line named after her.

01:10Zara's feeling a little bit down in the hierarchy because Zaras don't do as well as Lucinda's.

01:18More than 1,000 species of Everlasting Daisies exist in Australia.

01:22The native flower derives its name from its ability to retain both colour and shape once

01:26cut.

01:27But for the WA sheep and grain farmers, growing them at a commercial scale has taken years

01:32of trial and error.

01:36We had subsequent failures over the years but it just worked first time.

01:39We got quite a bit of seed out of it and so we just followed that recipe and we just applied

01:43our broadacre farming techniques to growing a flower and it worked.

01:49There you go, there's a nice bunch of flowers.

01:52We have started as a passion project for Jen and Rob has quickly grown.

01:56We now have 100 different shops across Australia and our online business is just huge, twice

02:02the size of the retail business.

02:10Success in mass cultivation has brought new and unexpected attention to the farm.

02:15First of all, we live in Mobrup, no one drives here.

02:31Locals aren't the only ones.

02:33The farm has become a magnet for creative types chasing a unique backdrop.

02:38We had Tame Impala come, they did a photo shoot in the Everlastings for their new telepathic

02:44instrument.

02:46We had the most incredible open day in our Everlastings where people can just come down

02:51and roll on the flowers and take their children, take their dogs.

02:55And finally we had the breast cancer charity calendar shoot so that was incredible as well.

Category

Transcript

Recommended