Queensland Flower Farms Bloom on Former Crop-Dusting Airstrips

On a former crop-dusting airstrip in tropical north Queensland rows of flowers bloom where chemicals for the region's vegetable farms were once loaded onto planes.

"It's quite the turnaround," Bowen flower grower Wanita Sparr said.

"Going from an operation that used to effectively spray pesticides and herbicides to being a flower farm where we're chemical free."

Ms Sparr started growing flowers after buying a 120-hectare property near Bowen with her husband, Dale McDonnell.

This year they planted thousands of flowers, from cosmos and zinnias to celosia and gomphrena, and quickly found strong demand for local blooms.

"I thought people wouldn't like flowers because it's a luxury," Mr McDonnell said.

"But I was very wrong because as soon as we had flowers, there was people jumping to get them."

Local flower boom undercut by pricing challenges

In the 2025 financial year, these smaller farms, with an annual turnover of less than $200,000, made up half of all nursery and floriculture businesses in Queensland, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

But despite increasing demand for local blooms, growers said turning flowers into a viable business was not always straightforward.

One of the biggest challenges was determining the retail value of the flowers, Ms Sparr explained.

Like many small growers, she sells flowers through subscriptions, direct sales and local florists.

"We can't compete with big, massive growers who grow on a huge scale because they have years of infrastructure and resources, whereas I'm starting from the very beginning."

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In an effort to address the issue, advocacy group The Flower Summit is developing a national pricing guide with input from industry stakeholders.

"For so many years growers and floral designers have never been able to price with confidence and clarity, and they have been undervalued for so long," Flower Summit founder Jessica Eckford-Aguilera said.

The group, with more than 150 members across the country, plans to launch the Australian grower-led flower pricing guide in September.

Ms Eckford-Aguilera said it was designed to give women in the industry a reference point for fair pricing, something growers like Ms Sparr welcomed.

"[A guide] makes it a lot easier," she said.

Flower Industry Australia, the representative body for the industry, was contacted for comment.

A rewarding endeavour

Ms Sparr is among a growing cohort of women establishing small-scale flower farms across regional Australia.

Ms Eckford-Aguilera said women often developed farms alongside or after careers in other sectors.

"Women in their late 30s and upwards are coming out of the corporate world and going, 'It's time to invest in myself and do something that I love,'" she said.

Five years ago, North Mackay grower Sonia Gaden left her career as an occupational therapist (OT) to focus on flowers.

"I made the very hard decision to hang up my OT boots and put on my gardening boots full-time," Ms Gaden said.

Today, she grows more than 100 varieties of flowers on her suburban block and sells about 30 bunches each week at local markets.

"Just the joy of gardening and being around flowers and the flexibility that it gave me and my family was something that I had to follow," she said.

About two hours away at Hydeaway Bay in the Whitsundays, Ciara Greatz began growing flowers after the birth of her children.

"I sort of felt a bit lost and I didn't really know what to do with my time," she said.

"I wanted to grow something that I could put out to the community but wanted something that was different."

What started as an experiment has become a business with a chemical-free approach to production.

"I just don't have enough flowers to keep up with the demand at the moment," she said.

"So, I have no choice but to expand."

Back on her flower patch outside Bowen, Ms Sparr hopes her farm will eventually expand enough to replace her full-time work in administration.

In the meantime, most weekends are spent preparing beds, planting seeds and harvesting flowers.

She believes the appeal extends beyond income.

"I think that's maybe what the attraction is for so many women going into micro farming," she said.

"And then I go and cut it and I sell it. It's like I've been rewarded more than once for my effort."