Farm Visit: South Australia
Saturday 11 October 2025
Come join us for a day of wildflowers in South Australia!
WildFlowers Australia is excited to host a visit to two special farms near Adelaide in the Adelaide Hills and Fleurieu Peninsula. Native Avenue is a relatively new farm that provides a lesson in how to convert a blank canvas into a productive 7-acre wildflower and foliage farm. Kidman Flower Co has been a flower farm since the 1980s and has a focus on providing the domestic market with high-quality wildflowers grown in a sustainable manner.
The day starts in Adelaide where we’ll board a bus for the trip to the farms. Also included is a catered lunch and a talk by Bruce Scott, an expert agronomist with a particular focus on wildflowers. For those that can stay the weekend, there is also the opportunity to visit the Currency Creek Arboretum open day on the Sunday.
Farm Visit Details:
Date: Saturday 11 October, 2025
Time: 8:30am – 5:30pm
Cost: $105 - WFA Members (MUST use discount code sent via email)
$150 - Non Members
Non-refundable after 4 October
Registration closes 8 October 2025
Further details on the farms….
Native Avenue began in 2018 when Dain and Ali Mcleavy purchased their 10-acre property with the aim living off grid with plenty of space for their children to grow. It was a plot of dirt. Not a tree or plant in sight - total blank canvas. Fast forward to now and they have almost 7 acres planted with Australian natives. As they describe it, some thrive, others teach them what doesn’t. In addition to their own farm, Ali and Dain manage a network of plantations across the Fleurieu Peninsula and beyond, ensuring continuous supply of seasonal, locally grown blooms.
For over 40 years, Kidman Flower Co. has been growing premium-quality blooms, fresh from the stunning Adelaide Hills. Des and Ange Kidman managed the farm from 2001, transitioning it from exporting flowers to supplying the domestic market with high-quality, locally grown native blooms, grown in a sustainable manner. Alison Wallis and Pete Day became the new owners of Kidman Flower Co. in 2024. Prior to taking the leap into full-time flower farming, Pete (a Yorkshire native) and Alison (an Adelaide Hills local) had a small commercial block of native flowers on a previous property, which they ran while working full-time. Their love of native flowers and the dream of living and working closer to nature led them to purchase Kidman Flower Co.
About our speaker…
Bruce Scott is an agronomist who has specialised in plant nutrition for the past 35 years. He has worked across almost all horticultural industries and across most horticultural areas in Australia.
Bruce’s work in agronomy started with the Department of Agriculture at the Horticultural Research Institute, Knoxfield, where he became a Horticultural Extension Officer. While there he had the opportunity to work with David Jones (Encyclopedia of Australian Plants) and David Nichols who was an authority on nursery growing media. More recently, Bruce has joined forces with Scott Degenhardt of Muirs & Co to visit Wildflower growers in South East South Australia and around the Grampians in Victoria.
Bruce has a particular interest in Australian wildflowers, a passion that started in the 1970s when he joined the Society for Growing Australian Plants and bought a 10-acre block of bushland in the Brisbane Ranges. He and his wife now live in the Dandenongs, east of Melbourne where they have a steep and relatively large garden with many native plants, some local and others prized imports from other areas of the country.