10/11/2025
Traditional kelp spray gives indoor plants shine
Bull kelp harvested by the Indigenous people of northwest Tasmania for thousands of years is now being used on gardens around Australia.
And it turns out there is nothing quite like the green shine that indoor plants develop after Tarkiner indoor plant fertiliser is applied.
“Spray it directly on the leaves of your plants and they will go back to that real deep shiny green colour and you’ll have a lot of growth,” says co-founder Selina Maguire-Colgrave. “Tarkiner is low smelling, so your plant is not going to smell like a beach.”
Tarkiner is made from the Bull kelp that grows in the Tarkine region on the northwest coast of Tasmania.
Whether it was to eat or used to make a traditional water carrier, the local Peerapper people have harvested the kelp for thousands of years.
Maguire-Colgrave, who is also chair of Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation, says it also happens to be an amazing fertiliser.
So when the corporation was looking for ways to create local employment and encourage the community to be involved in sharing their culture, it seemed an obvious product to take to the rest of Australia.
The kelp is harvested by Marrawah Kelp and the product bottled by Seasol until Tarkiner develops its own bottling plant.
“Bunnings has been amazing with helping us get the product to the shelf,” Maguire-Colgrave says. “We have two products, a spray and concentrate, in over 300 Bunnings stores.
“All our profits that come from the sale of Tarkiner goes into the community and that’s for all people – Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. It’s been a really good product for the whole community and the community to get into.”
Bunnings head of Indigenous affairs and enterprise economics, Michelle Matthews, says collaborations with First Nations companies are important as they help to redress economic imbalance.
“As Indigenous peoples, we didn’t begin at the same starting line, with legislation and systemic barriers preventing us from participating equally in the economy,” she says. “When Seasol began, my mother was living on a mission, which puts things into perspective. First Nations people are the world’s first entrepreneurs and innovators and we’re so proud to be supporting Tarkiner in bringing an amazing and sustainable product in a way that celebrates traditional knowledge.”
This article is part of the Back Australia series, which is supported by Australian Made, Harvey Norman, Westpac, Bunnings, Coles, TechnologyOne, REA Group, Cadbury, R.M.Williams, Qantas, Vodafone and BHP.
A solar farm located 200km north of Melbourne is supplying renewable electricity for Bunnings store network across Victoria, in an emerging style of energy partnership gaining momentum among businesses.
