Bob Blows knows exactly when he fell in love with plants and gardens.
The son of the owners of Stirling’s former Blows Bros Deli, Bob travelled around the Adelaide Hills with his father as a boy.
“He had a delivery service on the back of his big van, he’d put all the fruit and veg on there and go around to people’s places,” Bob says.
“I used to help.”
It was during those trips that Bob came across the gardens around the Stirling area and particularly fell in love with azaleas.
After finishing school he worked in a bank and later a nursery, before joining the family’s deli business after his father’s death in 1959.
But the passion for plants that was awakened as a boy remained and, about seven years later, Bob expanded the family business to open what would later become one of SA’s respected nurseries, Blows Bros Nursery.
“The first day on the first of July, 1966, (Bob was) getting all excited – not one customer came,” Bob’s wife Margaret Blows recalls.
“A good start,” Bob adds.
The initial slow start didn’t deter Bob and, over time, the business grew, specialising in camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons.
Starting out on a property along Sturt Valley Road, Bob later moved the business further up to 150 Sturt Valley Road, where there was more room to expand.
“It was very hard work for Bob to begin with,” Margaret says.
“… Bob was the one who had the challenges, starting it up and getting it going and persevering.
“… One of the challenges was as we were in there longer and longer, is every place would sell plants, whether it was a hardware or Bunnings, and we found that the number of customers dropped, but the average sale was a lot higher.”
Over the years Blows Bros Nursery won prizes at garden shows and was the supplier of box hedges for a maze at the historic mansion Carrick Hill.
Bob also propagated a new type of fatsia after finding a sport – a part of a plant that has different characteristics to the rest due to a DNA error – on a silver variegated variety.
He released the plant, which had a golden variegation, under the name Bob’s Endeavour and, while it hasn’t been registered, it can be found at Garden Depot today and is still being propagated by Bob’s son, Simon.
In 2005, Bob and Margaret decided to leave the nursery, passing it on to their eldest son, Paul, who ran it for several years before it closed.
Today Bob and Margaret live on a property just up the road from the previous nursery, in a home surrounded by about 80 camellias as well as box hedges, fuchias, magnolias, birch trees and maples.
While a major portion of the property is in the English style, a Japanese-style garden dominates one corner.
“(Bob’s) always loved azaleas and things you see in Japanese gardens,” Margaret says.
Paths flanked by topiary hedges wind around the house, while further down the valley from the formal garden, a narrow stream flows along one side of the property.
The garden was designed with the help of a landscaper, but the plants were positioned by Bob and, for many years he tended to the roughly 1ha property.
Today the 88-year-old is less hands-on in the garden.
But it’s still a central part of his and Margaret’s lives.
“We just love beautiful things – beautiful plants and surroundings,” Margaret says.
“… We couldn’t imagine not having a garden.”
“We’d be lost,” Bob adds.
And, while his days in the nursery are over, his knack for gardening has been passed on to his four children who all share his passion.
“It was never just work for Bob – it was a love of plants,” Margaret says.
“And some of us caught the bug a bit.”
