Faster than a speeding bullet

John’s an interesting man. He’s a horticultural consultant, but he’s also a farmer. Ten years ago, he and his wife Linda bought a chestnut farm in West Australia. It was about three hours from Perth, the nearest big city.

People thought he was crazy. Chestnuts sell for $2.50/pound in Australia and John says it costs $3.50/pound to pick them. But he wasn’t planning on selling any nuts.

His farm, Chestnut Brae, is the only producer of chestnut flour in the Southern hemisphere. He partners with a brewery and a distillery that uses the flour to make an award-winning ale and chestnut liqueur. The beer sells for $29 a bottle. A decent bottle of beer is typically about $7 in Australia. By thinking outside the box, he found a way to make an unprofitable crop profitable.

John shared a lot of ideas with the 200-plus attendees, but the one that resonated with me the most was the idea that tree growers are tomorrow’s heroes and we should market them as such. Here’s his reasoning: Today’s consumer cares about their plants and wants to know about the person who grew them. They don’t care about all the steps in the supply chain – even the store in which they’re currently shopping. They want to know who grew that plant, how they did it, even why they grew it. The hero is the grower, not the seller, not even the brand.

It’s doubly important for tree growers, which John says are necessary to save the planet. He believes we need to plant more trees to fight climate change, but there are fewer tree growers in the market these days. On a state and national level, we need to communicate the message that trees are essential, and John believes the way to do it is for the horticulture industry to make those growers into heroes.

This is tricky, because the people behind wholesale nurseries are generally a humble bunch. I’ve met a lot of you over the 12 years I’ve been with this magazine, and many of you are content to do your work out of the limelight. So it may be uncomfortable territory, but there’s an opportunity here if you’re willing to take it. Put your face out there. Tell your story. Be the hero.

Read more from John starting on page 14.