Three years ago Lisa Seville and Neville Quick started propagating plants at their new Navigators home.
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After years of hard work and risk taking in leaving their comfortable office jobs, they have now realised their dream of operating their own nursery.
The couple opened their new business Navigators Nursery in October and have been constantly growing and expanding their plant offerings.
There are plenty of moments of glory here.
- Neville Quick, Navigators Nursery
"The other day I sat on the potting mix after a busy day. We pinch ourselves a lot because we look around and go it is actually a proper nursery. It is very exciting," Ms Seville said.
Ms Seville's dream of selling plants began in the late 90s, loading up a small cart with plants to take over to the milk bar across the road and place for sale on a trolley the owners had set aside for her.
She still has the original cart at the nursery today.
"I started to read about plants and suddenly I became obsessed and couldn't get enough," Ms Seville said.
"I was subscribed to Gardening Australia and used to wait at the gate for the postie to deliver it.
"I was obsessed and I still am a little bit. Neville says 'put that book down, it is 11pm'. I am always reading about stuff."
Ms Seville said she worked at Wombat Gully Plant Farm in Geelong after 'begging them' for a job, because she had no qualifications at the time.
She said she studied in the early 2000s, then worked in domestic gardens and large scale commercial nurseries and presented a few times with Jane Edmondson on Gardening Australia.
Mr Quick and Ms Seville met six years ago and they both worked in office jobs for the next six years, before deciding to commit to starting the nursery full time.
The nursery has been three years in the making, with countless hours of work to transform the former horse paddock into the new site - building fences, putting down gravel and growing the plant stock.
It is like a full circle for the Navigators property, as two men operated a rare plant nursery there 20 years ago.
"They were quite eccentric and they are well known around the community here," Ms Seville said.
"They tell funny stories about how they used to come out with poached chicken sandwiches and a glass of red wine for the customers.
"One of them has passed away but we have communicated with the other one and he is very emotional about us reopening something."
Mr Quick said he felt good about the future, with the nursery developing a reputation and customer base.
"It was a big move to leave our comfortable fairly well paid office jobs to swan around in the mud," he said.
"The office job was stressful in a different way. This can be stressful but there are plenty of moments of glory here."
Ms Seville said she loves being in the nursery on a sunny day, describing it as 'heavenly', with bees, dragonflies and butterflies around.
"It is getting less stressful. When we were starting we were deciding where to direct our funds," she said.
"The hardest thing has been getting to this point. We are at a point where it is getting a life of its own.
"We talk about this as being our baby. We have hundreds of babies to look after. At the moment it is just crawling but it will keep on growing."
Ms Seville said the high demand for plants from nurseries during the coronavirus pandemic, particularly lockdown periods, had given her confidence they were in the 'right' industry.
But one challenge they had faced due to COVID was a shortage of a number of plants.
"Something we experienced was the limited availability of growers because we were coming in at a point everything had been smashed," she said.
"You couldn't get any citrus, you couldn't get any protea family and it is still like that now. It takes time."
"Some of the sellers will take another two years to recover," Mr Quick said.
Ms Seville said one of her favourite parts of the job was talking to customers, helping them choose the right plants for the climate, giving design advice and providing information on caring for the plants.
"We try to give our customers a bit of a package of knowledge to take away when the are buying so they have a bit of a relationship with the plant," she said.
"Lisa has even offered to go and water people's plants when they are not home," Mr Quick said.
"It is like giving away your babies," Ms Seville said.
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