{"id":515057,"date":"2026-03-03T02:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T02:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515057\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T02:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T02:32:14","slug":"growers-branch-out-as-demand-grows-for-unique-australian-native-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515057\/","title":{"rendered":"Growers branch out as demand grows for unique Australian native flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nestled within the lush green bushland of the NSW Mid North Coast, Paul Dalley’s flower farm is the last place a crop of Sturt’s desert pea would be expected to thrive.<\/p>\n

The floral emblem of South Australia normally grows in the outback, in arid conditions and sandy soil, but Mr Dalley is growing the flower in a greenhouse in Kempsey, where dozens of the native desert flowers are in full bloom.<\/p>\n

Before Mr Dalley attempted to grow the flower last year, he had only seen it once, at Melbourne’s botanic gardens.<\/p>\n

“We just like growing things that are beautiful and different, and nobody else is growing,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They’re beautiful, they’re unique, a lot of people have seen pictures but have never seen them for real.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Dalley loves the challenge of unique Australian blooms. (ABC Rural: Lauren Bohane)<\/p>\n

Mr Dalley had about 40 plants in this year’s crop, each sporting several flowers.<\/p>\n

“We’re doing much better than last year when most of the plants died off, and we only got about half a dozen flowers from 10 plants,” he said.<\/p>\n

But he said the challenge was what drew him to unusual flowers.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Dalley plans to collect seeds from this year’s crop of Sturt’s desert pea. (ABC News: Lauren Bohane)<\/p>\n

“Some of our crops are more on the mainstream side, and some are more far out, and some of them fail altogether.<\/p>\n

“It’s a bit like gambling, but I don’t gamble, so I buy exotic plants and seeds.”<\/p>\n

Mr Dalley said there had been massive interest in the flowers, but he planned to save most of this year’s crop for seeds.<\/p>\n

In South Australia, Sturt’s desert pea is considered a protected flora, meaning flowers and plants cannot be collected from private or Crown land without permission.<\/p>\n

Growing interest in natives<\/p>\n

Further south, on the NSW Central Coast, East Coast Wildflowers’ Jonathan Lidbetter has been growing Sturt’s desert pea for eight years.<\/p>\n

“It normally grows in areas of rainfall of about 250-500mm a year, and we routinely get over 1,100mm, so we must be mad,” Mr Lidbetter said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had various quality issues with seed and haven’t made it a huge focus until the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

“In the last couple of years, we’ve really tried hard to grow it better, to make it more commercial and to make the product desirable for the customer.”<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan<\/p>\n

Jonathan Lidbetter has been growing Sturt’s desert pea for eight years. (Supplied: Jonathan Lidbetter)<\/p>\n

The blooms were sold at Sydney Flower Markets, where Mr Lidbetter said there was growing interest in native flowers.<\/p>\n

“There’s a move to more interesting, delicate flowers that have not really been available before,” Mr Lidbetter said.<\/p>\n

“COVID partly brought in a little bit of interest in locally-grown native flowers [with] short flower miles.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Sturt’s desert pea is notoriously difficult to grow outside of its native habitat. (ABC News: Lauren Bohane)<\/p>\n

Mr Lidbetter said limited availability kept florists coming back to see what was in season.<\/p>\n

“Seasonality keeps the florists interested in the market area because they’re always coming in to see what’s new, what’s hitting the floor.<\/p>\n

“A lot of their traditional flowers that they’re used to, they’re able to get 12 months a year, and they can just order them.<\/p>\n

“A lot of the things that are now coming along in the native market line are very restricted supplies and often quite unusual.”Natives not always Australian-grown<\/p>\n

The peak body for Australian flower growers and florists credited the rise in popularity of native flowers to Australians’ growing desire to buy local.<\/p>\n

“A lot of people in Australia relate them to being Australian-grown products, and there’s a real trend towards wanting to buy and support Australian-grown flowers and Aussie businesses,” Flower Industry Australia secretary Anna Jabour said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Anna Jabour says native flowers are becoming more popular. (Supplied: Flower Industry Australia)<\/p>\n

However, Ms Jabour warned Australian native did not always equate to Australian-grown when it came to flowers.<\/p>\n

“I’ve seen kangaroo paw [and] some eucalyptus be imported, and that’s why it’s really important to ask where your flowers are from.”<\/p>\n

She said the flower industry had been advocating for mandated country-of-origin labelling for the past two decades.<\/p>\n

“If there’s no labelling telling people where flowers are from, a lot of the Australian public think that the flowers are just grown here,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Twenty-five years ago, that assumption would be correct; around 90 per cent or more of our flowers were grown here, but today it’s only around 50 per cent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nestled within the lush green bushland of the NSW Mid North Coast, Paul Dalley’s flower farm is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,81,257627,257623,257624,257628,69351,47020,257626,44,14160,257625,5711],"class_list":["post-515057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian","tag-australian-native-flower","tag-cut-flowers","tag-florist","tag-flower-industry-australia","tag-flowers","tag-native","tag-native-flowers","tag-news","tag-plants","tag-sturts-desert-pea","tag-trends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}