About Us
Our story: Where we started
Robyn and Steve moved back to Naracoorte in South Australia after living in Queensland for 17 years, to be near their children and grand children in 2015, where upon 3.5 acres of farm land was purchased to retire on.
With a small house, large shed and with a paddock of 3 acres consisting of pure sand, we needed a way to stabilize the sandy soil suitable for rosemary plants similar to their native environment in a Mediterranean climate from erosion by wind and rain.
Robyn then suggested using plants to form a hedge to provide a windbreak. In 2017 we began a long search for a plant that would be suitable for our farm. This led us to consider using rosemary for its drought tolerant qualities and after considerable . This process took until 2019 when we decided to plant a test row of plants.
In order to ensure we had the correct plants, we purchased our initial 50 plants from Balmoral Herbs in Victoria that was the largest rosemary plantation in Australia at the time with 130 acres.
These plants had been selectively cultivated over a 40 year period by the original owners of this plantation.
These plants were specifically cultivated to have the highest oil content of rosemary planets in the world at 3.5% compared to ordinary plants with an oil content of 0.5% and to also have a wide tolerance of temperatures suitable for our location.
With a successful test trial of these plants we made the decision to use another 3,000 plants to form multiple hedge rows of rosemary as a method of preventing more erosion on our land.
During this time before we put in more plants we decided to investigate the different methods of cultivation around the world and armed with this knowledge we created a unique farming strategy to optimize our planting efficiency.
This was then expanded so eventually we had 7,800 plants spread over 48 rows of 165 plants per row.
In 2021 we were informed that Balmoral Herbs was closing down their operations and had a great deal of equipment for sale. From here we brought their equipment and intellectual property.
Along with this equipment we installed a world leading steam distillation and extraction system powered by gas as we were isolated from local electricity supplies.
Rosemary plants take at least 3 years to be come commercially viable, and so in 2024 we embarked on producing rosemary hydrosol for its healing properties. Our research and testing in various communities eventually allowed us to settle upon four different products that are now available for sale.
Our Farm
Our Rosemary Farm is located on the outskirts of Naracoorte, in the South East of South Australia.
