Twenty five years of importing, collecting, breeding and propagating exotic plants means we can lay claim to one of the biggest commercial stocks of tropical flowering plants in Australia. In fact our inventory is almost half a million plants.
Heliconias and their related varieties like the Ginger and Costos plants are very low maintenance. They are affected by almost no diseases or insects. The few recognised problems like grasshoppers and root boring insects cause so little damage that we almost never have to spray chemicals to keep them healthy. Fungus diseases are virtually non existent.
For most normal cut flower crops like Roses, Gerberas etc pest and disease prevention can account for about a third of the time spent growing a top quality product. Additionally almost all temperate climate flower crops are picked daily or even twice daily and many varieties need to be replanted after each flowering cycle.
By contrast tropical flowers are picked only twice a week and all varieties are left in the ground multiplying in numbers for anywhere between 3 and 10 years depending on variety. Maintenance around the plants is handled with ride on mowers and small tractors.
Added to this very low maintenance is the fact that exotic tropical flowers attract some of the best prices in the cut flower market.
Almost all of the tropical flower varieties reproduce by rhizome multiplication. A rhizome is a fleshy root that produces a flowering stem. Each rhizome is in fact a new plant which can be cut from the main plant and replanted. We have produced a detailed inventory spreadsheet of varieties using stem densities per square metre to calculate the number of plants. There is currently around 480,000 plants on the farm. Because of the fast rate of reproduction this is an almost inexhaustible quantity of stock should a new owner decide to start selling plants as well as cut flowers.
In addition to our flowering stock we have three large shadhouses of tropical foliage plants. These are mainly Cordyline and Draceana varieties from which we sell the leaves to the floral industry. These plants are propagated from small pieces of stem cane. We have approximately 45,00 metres of cane which sells to the wholesale nursery industry for $2-$2.50 per metre for pot plant production.
A quick google search will show that the average sale price for Heliconia rhizomes ranges from $3-$15 in Australia depending on variety.
In addition to the plants we grow we also import Orchid cut flowers as a supplement to the other exotic tropical flowers we produce.
Detailed spreadsheets showing all plant stock numbers and varieties are available.
There is great potential to expand the business by developing a plant sale division to take advantage of this continually expanding stock of rhizomes and plant cane. We are often approached by landscapers and nurseries to supply quantities of plants. Whilst we have sold plant stock in the past for the last 5-6 years we chosen not to service this part of the market. Mail order plant sales through Ebay is another highly profitable area that is virtually untapped.
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