Shattered Dreams - Chemical and bureaucratic overload closes 30 year family business

Wesley Trevor has 50 years of experience in the plant industry, as he grew up potting plants in his parents’ plant business. At the age of 18, he pursued his passion by starting his own plant nursery.

Then in 1996 he and his wife bought a property in the beautiful Gold Coast hinterland in SE Queensland, where they developed their family business, Spectrum Plants.

For almost 30 years, four generations of his family have worked at Spectrum Plants, potting and selling landscape and indoor plants. The family is passionate and proud that for decades they operated a low chemical plant nursery.

Their nursery is on 7 acres of land, and one-quarter to one-third of their business used to be the sale of spray-free edible plants.

Like any business, they had their challenges along the way, including most recently, an isolated weather event around Christmas 2023, dealing with the aftermath of a devastating storm on Christmas night, and flooding which followed on New Years night in 2024. Their business has been slowly recovering from this weather event for the last 2 years.

But the biggest challenges in the nursery’s history arose when the fire ants came to town.

To be clear, however, the challenges are not fire ant infestations, as the nursery does not have any fire ants. Rather they are the controls, requirements, restrictions and audits of the National Fire Ant Eradication Program, the NFAEP, which have created the greatest challenges in the almost 30-year history of their family business.