As we travel around attending markets and events, there is a lot of curiosity about what we sell. We get asked many questions, including: "Where do you get the coir fibre?" When we answer that it comes from the husk of coconuts, we see heads spinning. This is fair enough, given that we're a business based in the Mallee that is renowned for being flat and often very dry—a landscape that is not suitable for growing tropical fruit like coconuts.
In this blog, I'm taking you behind the scenes and sharing the journey of how we discovered coir fibre and where we source ours from.
Growing a garden in arid parts of Australia like the Mallee comes with challenges: wind, dust, extreme heat, winter frosts, and low rainfall. But knowing how particularly important it is to have a garden for those of us living in these harsh, desert-like conditions took us on the journey to find a sustainable solution that would allow the plants in our gardens not just survive but to thrive.
When we commenced the search, we didn't know where it would lead us. Because caring for our environment is our overarching ethos, we had to think outside of the square. Using plastic was not an option.
We searched far and wide throughout Australia and the globe to discover the ultimate solution: coir fibre—a product that not only guards the plants against the elements, allowing them to grow (not just survive), but it also eventually breaks down back into the ground. Coir fibre is manufactured in several countries, including Thailand, Sri Lanka, and China.
Eventually, we found a supplier in China who kindly sent us samples. When we tried these samples in our garden, we confirmed that coir fibre was exactly what we were looking for. Since then, we have had supplies sent from Sri Lanka.
Have you ever heard the phrase "nothing is ever straightforward"? When we knew we'd found the right product, we enquired about making an order. We learnt that the minimum order was a 20-ft shipping container consisting of 4000 mats in four different sizes. This was a rather large order for something we didn't yet have a market for.
Then there was the process of paperwork, shipping, biosecurity, quarantine, insurance, and freight forwarders. Bringing a plant-based product into Australia is tightly controlled so that there are no unwanted bugs entering our country.
With so many hurdles in front of us, we could have easily decided it was too hard. But instead, we trusted our intuition. We knew that we'd found the solution we went searching for. We went ahead and ordered.
You may wonder what our contingency plan was if there was no interest in the coir fibre. Our only Plan B was to protect every plant and tree standing on our own property with coir fibre!
Thankfully, coir fibre has been well received. We have expanded and now offer a variety of gardening solutions using coir fibre, including:
We also sell coir fibre by the roll, which is an ideal way to purchase the product if you have large areas like veggie patches and garden beds to protect. We also cater for large commercial orders and can supply pots in sizes to suit.
If you'd like to know more about ways you can use coir fibre to nurture and care for your plants in your home garden or business, please reach out to us today. We love to share everything we know and have learnt about this fantastic product.
We are looking to expand our range further, so if there is anything about the coir fibre product you may be interested in, please let us know so we can make enquiries for you.