Native flower farmer Annabelle Greenup has had an annual winter break, when her crops were dormant and not in bloom, for more than 24 years.
But this year, her western NSW business experienced a first: consistent flowering all year round.
“There’s been super early flowering of lots of things, things that you’d expect to be flowering in about a month’s time,” Mrs Greenup said.
Annabelle Greenup and her husband Anthony grow Australian native wildflowers. (ABC Western Plains: Emily Middleton)
Industry experts have said the trend is not uncommon, but it has not been seen this extreme.
Mrs Greenup and her husband Anthony O’Halloran said while the early blooms were great for business, they were very unusual.
“Though it was a dampish, coolish winter, it really wasn’t cold,” Mrs Greenup said.
“We’ve been able to pick things the whole time.”
Mrs Greenup says the constant blooms are good for business. (ABC Western Plains: Emily Middleton)
Mrs Greenup said there would usually be up to 100 frosts a season at her Binnaway property, but this year there had only been about 30.
“Our banksias typically come into flower November right through to May and then we usually can’t keep picking because they get damaged,” she said.
“But this year, we have been able to just keep picking some.”
Mrs Greenup says the season has been unique. (ABC Western Plains: Emily Middleton)
Change in climate
Excessive winds experienced in western NSW have also caused flowers to dry out rapidly.
“Some of the inland hakeas and the hybrids we’ve bred, they’ve really aged very quickly,” Anthony O’Halloran said.
“So the dry warm conditions have really wilted a lot of them.”
A lot of native varieties have flowered early at the Bilby Blooms farm. (ABC Western Plains: Emily Middleton)
The conditions have caused some unease for the Bilby Blooms owners, who hoped they would not mean a repeat of 2019, which the NSW government declared as “drier and hotter [conditions] than any other NSW drought in the last 120 years”.
“It’s been just so warm, and 2019 was very warm with little rain,” Mr O’Halloran said.
“As long as we get regular rain, it will be good, but if it dries off, it will be interesting.”
Many wildflowers are in full bloom at Bilby Blooms, near Binnaway, NSW. (ABC Western Plains: Emily Middleton)
Concern for the environment
Chief scientist for wholesale flower and plant supply company Lynch Group, Scott Salter, said while he had seen some variations in flowering time because of climate changes, he couldn’t recall seeing anything as extreme.
“In cut flowers, some plants are especially susceptible to temperature and we do see some effects on wild harvested flowers that show quite some difference in flowering compared to the scheduled time of flowering,” Mr Salter said.
“As the climate continues to warm, we will see examples of these types of effects more and more.”
Mrs Greenup says the banksia blooms are significantly early this year. (ABC Western Plains: Emily Middleton)
Mr Salter said the effects of warmer weather were not ideal for the industry as there was the potential to miss market opportunities.
He also said it was a major concern for the environment.
“Plants often rely on pollinators that they have co-evolved in order to spread genetic material and enhance natural genetic diversity,” Mr Salter said.
“If the flowers are available earlier [or later] than the pollinators are ready or optimised for them, this can have consequences.”
