Kylie Davis’ sunflowers brightening up her local Deniliquin community
Kylie Davis accidentally stumbled upon a gift for not only growing sunflowers, but also brightening up the days of her local community members. Here’s what she has learnt along the way.
IT TOOK just three months for budding Deniliquin farmer Kylie Davis to grow her sunflower patch into a fully-fledged tourist attraction.
While she was surprised by the success of her small plot of flowers, Ms Davis said it had been a great learning experience.
“The amount of people we’ve met along the way and how much fun we’ve had has just been amazing,” she said.
“Something else interesting we’ve learnt is that you can eat the flower from root to petal.”
Spurred on by the negativity of 2020 and the latest round of border closures in NSW, Ms Davis said planting the 5000-odd flower patch was an effort to “spread a little bit of happiness” within the wider community.
“It’s a feel-good thing,” she said. ”People can just have a little photo (in the crop) and purchase a bunch of flowers and brighten up their home.”
One of Ms Davis’ favourite visits was from the local nursing home, which she said reminded her of the importance of what she had created.
“If that was the only thing I did with the sunflower crop I’d be happy. Words can’t describe the delight on these clients faces,” she said.
Ms Davis said she wouldn’t have done nearly as well without the help of her neighbours and has plans to build on that success.
“My neighbourhood have been instrumental in supporting us and they’re really impressed that they have something good to look at,” she said.
“The next stage of the sunflower plant is to look at getting local restaurants on board.”
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