Kate Skvor, horticulturalist
Many of you will have come across the enthusiastic, warm and down-to-earth grower Kate Skvor, 60, during her 30-year association with Shoreham.
You may have bought plants from her at the Briars Nursery where she was co-ordinator or spotted her at Bittern Market on a Sunday morning. Or you’ve been buying plants from her at Shoreham Native Nursery in Blake Street which she owns and runs.
A multi-talented ball of energy, Kate is a skilled businesswoman, horticulturalist, cook (preserves and sauces a specialty), community volunteer, wife to Dave and Mum to Mitch and Laura. In March she became a grandmother for the first time.
Mitch Skvor with his partner Lydia and their daughter Florence
Kate’s childhood and heartbreak
Kate grew up in Cheltenham as one of a second set of twins (both sets are a boy/girl combination) born to her parents, Claire and Frank Chandler. “Mum did it tough with four babies under three and no help from my parents who lived in South Australia,” she says.
The Chandlers used to go camping on the Peninsula and Kate loved playing in an inflatable boat on Shoreham Beach as well as the camaraderie of siblings close in age.
Once she finished Year 12, Kate worked as an after-school-hours care supervisor until she was 21 when she fell in love with a wealthy, smooth-talking, fast-car-driving fellow and became engaged. He announced three weeks before their wedding that he loved someone else. A devastated Kate was left at the altar. Her distress was exacerbated when this fellow took his new girlfriend to the same church that Kate attended.
It didn’t take long though before she realised that this man had stolen her confidence and joie de vivre, that he constantly put her down and criticised her for not living up to his ‘standards’.
Kate read a psalm one day that exhorted her not to feel covered in shame. It was an epiphany of sorts: Kate felt that God was standing next to her and speaking to her heart. The comfort of the Lord took the blinkers from her eyes and she was restored to her usual confident self.
David and Kate’s wedding day
At 25, Kate met David Skvor at a Christian games’ night. Their first meeting was fiery. In a game of Monopoly, Kate lost her temper, threw the die at Dave and stormed out.
“I said to my girlfriend at the time ‘What on earth is wrong with her? She’s got a problem!’,” Dave says.
They didn’t speak again until the next games’ night, when Kate apologised to Dave for her outburst. But she thinks what actually impressed him was when he saw her fall off a horse and then get straight back on.
They married in 1992, when Kate was 26 years old. She had her son Mitch at 29 and daughter Laura 22 months later.
Laura (left) and her brother Mitch (right) serving the judges on the reality television program, My Kitchen Rules
Spotlight on Kate’s close children
The siblings are dear friends. A decade ago, they competed on ‘My Kitchen Rules’ with Laura in charge and Mitch as her support person.
Laura, 30, is a highly accomplished pastry chef, a finalist in The Age Good Food Guide Young Chef of the Year Award 2026 and a member of the winning team at Barragunda Dining, Cape Schanck for the Trailblazer Award 2026.
Mitch, 31, is a paramedic on the ‘reserves’ list for the Peninsula, married to Lydia, and father to six-week-old Florence.
Mitch and Laura cooked for the ‘My Kitchen Rules’ judges in Kate’s Shoreham kitchen. They made smoked venison steak with cherries, a novelty as smoking was unusual back then. They lifted the cloche and voila! They scored a 10.
Laura was studying Global Studies and four languages at Monash University when she appeared on MKR. Getting up at 4am for a 6am start, and then filming from 6pm until the wee hours was very hard.
“I’d grown up with cooking shows and expected the world to be just and fair,” Laura says. “MKR taught me something different.”
An upside though was that she quit university to pursue a cooking apprenticeship. “I [had] thought I would get my degree, become a translator and travel the world while learning to cook,” Laura says. “The MKR experience changed all that – why not just jump in?”
In 2019 Laura partnered with chef Michael Cole, now executive chef and co-owner of Moke in Flinders, to represent Australia in the prestigious Bocuse d’Or competition where they came fourth.
Laura Skvor
How Kate and her family came to live in Shoreham
Dave and Kate moved to Shoreham in 1993, first renting in Shoreham Road and then building in Blake Street in 1995/96. “Dave can turn his hand to just about anything,” Kate says. “He is a builder and a qualified horticulturalist, as well as a saddler, leather-worker, concreter, artist and sculptor.”
When Laura was born, Kate and Dave started a nursery at home with one acre under plants. Customers were mainly wholesale. This successful business continued for 15 years. “It got the kids through school,” Kate says.
But when Bunnings’ nursery business burgeoned, the couple’s sales dropped. It became harder and harder to compete on price.
Undaunted they set up a food van in front of the Point Leo surf shop which they extended when the General Store lease became available. “We are adventurous people,” Kate says.
The building had been boarded up for some time, so the couple threw themselves into an enormous cleaning and rehab job to get the store back on its feet and then ran the café for 18 months.
Mitch and Laura loved working in the shop for $20 an hour but it was enormously hard work for their parents. The trade was seasonal (dead in winter) and in summer the café closer to the beach took the main business. “We were working our butts off and not making money,” Kate says. “It was a very tough gig”.
In 2013 Kate saw an advertisement for a maternity leave position at Briars Nursery in Mt Martha and saw her chance to get back into horticulture, this time with a regular wage. She was back with plants, meeting the locals and, once promoted to co-ordinator, enjoying the opportunity to expand and improve the business with a new shed and more igloos. “I loved the job and the team,” she says.
But the pandemic hit hard; it was socially isolating.
After nine years in the job, Kate took three months’ long service leave. She returned to work but the scenery had changed. A new staff member seemed to have displaced Kate in her boss’s favours. Kate was the outsider.
Things came to a head swiftly. Kate was accused of bullying and not permitted to return to work until the complaint was resolved. “The bullying accusation was unfair,” she says. “It shattered me but I take full responsibility for having become a bit sour.”
Now Kate regards her departure from Briars Nursery as the best thing that could have happened. She turned to what she knows and loves best: the propagation and sale of native plants, especially indigenous native plants.
Some of the many plants at Shoreham Native Nursery
Kate loves being in charge of her own boutique business. She supplies 5000 orders a year to the likes of Landcare, Naturelinks and the Peninsula Hot Springs as well as Merricks Native Nursery and, of course, individuals. While she grows from seed and cuttings at present, she expects to extend the non-indigenous natives’ side of the business through a tie-up with nursery group Wildtech.
Kate also loves giving to the community. She took over the native plant spot at Bittern Market when it became vacant and volunteers to help set up the stalls from 6am each Sunday. She joined Hastings Rotary, although confesses that she doesn’t make it to every weekly dinner meeting. She also helps residents at Arcare in Balnarring to do crafts and serves customers at Red Hill Op Shop.
Kate and Dave have enjoyed an enduring relationship. They share a deep Christian faith, with a Bible reading every morning and daily prayers together.
Kate now has a granddaughter as well as plants to nurture. With Dave by her side, who knows what this indomitable optimist will do next?
“She is always excitable, full of life and the goodness of life,” Laura says.
Hear, hear!
Kate with her grand daughter Florence