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.
Comments