The Exotic Tropical Orchard

A western australian couple have built a colourful garden of eden on the shores of the Indian Ocean

- Jana Holmer

Two hours south of Perth, Dalyellup is a semirural outer suburb of Bunbury on the edge of the Indian Ocean. With beaches to the west and Tuart Forest to the east, it’s a thoughtfully planned, fast-growing neighbourhood.

Donna, a hairdresser, and Kev, a former haulage contractor who now works in forestry, own a half-acre property in Dalyellup. Its alkaline soil is ideal for their 600m2 or so of tropical edibles and Mediterranean fruit trees.

Donna grew up on a dairy farm in Brunswick Junction to the northeast, while Kev’s family raised cattle in Northumberland, near the Scottish border.

Chances are the couple never imagined they’d be growing dragon fruit, let alone harvesting 450 of the quirky-looking exotics as they did last year.

It was in 1985 that Donna started gardening on five acres at nearby Stratham. She grew vegetables and raised chooks and a lamb, then went on to study soil nutrition.

After that she started growing mangoes, snake beans, corn and sweet potato as well as Carpentaria palms, vinca and every colour of frangipani. It was good preparation for what was to come.

FRUIT SALAD

Here in Dalyellup, with Kev’s help in grafting and propagating, she’s broadened her repertoire to include dragon fruit and, thanks to her biological father Jimmy Dawson, jujube or Chinese date.

Regarded as an authority on Ziziphus jujuba, Jimmy’s one of the biggest producers of the rare fruit, a high-fibre, low-calorie drupe, rich in vitamin C, that tastes a bit like an apple and is considered a superfood in China.