About Us
Sunshine Iris Nursery is situated just east of the small town of Lockhart in the Riverina, Australia on the cropping property "Wargam".
Sunshine Iris Nursery was first established in the early 90s by a Dutch gentleman in Lavington, NSW. Details are sketchy about this period of the nursery's life. Carolyn Young from Jindera, NSW was the next owner and owned the nursery for about 5 years before selling to Randall Lieschke from Henty in 1998. Randall ran the nursery as Yesteryear Iris and Daylily Nursery for 9 years and speaks very fondly of it.
Tory Simmons and her father Peter Croker bought the nursery from Randall in 2007 as an addition to their Hereford farm and the plants were moved to Bolong Farms, The Rock, NSW. Tory says the nursery helped to drought proof their farm during those few tough years.
Bolong Farms Iris Farm became Sunshine Iris Nursery in March 2013 when Mandy and her daughter Elissa purchased the business from the Croker/Simmons family at The Rock. They moved the 20 000 plus daylilies and irises to the cropping property "Quamby", located 8km north of Lockhart. The irises were then moved again in 2015 to "Wargam" where Mandy lives and she became key caretaker.
In 2017 Elissa decided to focus on more academic interests and passed the garden fork over to Mandy’s twin sister, Margie to join the iris business. Elissa continues to maintain an interest in Sunshine Iris Nursery, managing the online presence and of course, being the principle consultant in the agronomy side of growing iris.
Read more about our plants for information on the types of iris flowers and daylilies. Sunshine Iris Nursery currently have over 650 varieties of iris flowers and over 100 varieties of daylilies. We specialise in the older vintage bearded iris varieties including tall bearded, median bearded and dwarf bearded iris. Our daylilies include large, doubles, spider types and miniature varieties. We also plan to introduce a selection of the newest bearded iris from breeders around the world.
Our plants are available for purchase online all year round. Arrival of your plants may be delayed in October and November as we do not pick when the irises are flowering. Sunshine Iris Nursery is also open for orders and viewing during the bloom period in October every year, coinciding with Lockhart's Spirit of the Land Festival. We are also open by appointment in October and November, contact us to arrange a time. We would love for you to come and visit us!
Please like our Facebook page to keep up-to-date with opening times and other special events.
For more information about our town of Lockhart, please visit our local shire council page www.lockhart.nsw.gov.au and local tourism page www.lockhartshiretourism.com.au