Guest Speaker: John Colwill – WA Daisies

John Colwill is the Founder of WADAISIES – Specialist growers and suppliers of seeds of West Australian native ephemeral plants.

Australia has a truly amazing range of annual flowers. Western Australia alone has literally hundreds of species in the Asteraceae (Compositae) or Daisy family many of which are really showy and capable of carpeting small areas or even entire landscapes in dazzling colours in spring. These plants have evolved special survival skills over thousands of years but recently conditions have changed. Many species have now become scarce and some are even threatened with extinction due to a combination of climate change, mining and agriculture and competition from weeds. As a result the dramatic and colourful landscapes that often appear in brochures (and on this website too) are becoming fewer and less frequent.

To date it has only been possible to buy seeds of very few of the hundreds of species and many of those seeds are wild harvested, placing an even greater strain on the surviving populations.

I have been fascinated by these plants for decades and have been quietly cultivating and selecting varieties suitable for the home garden and now, in response to many requests, I have decided to offer them for sale. All the seeds are from cultivated plants, not wild harvested. I hope they bring some colour to your garden and pleasure to you.