Australian Succulents

Females and Succulents

For most of my life I've enjoyed plants and gardening and much of this has come from my father whose garden was a favourite place to play, grow and learn.  Early on, I thought gardening was more of a man's world. Much of the hard work seemed only a man's ability.

Yet from these earliest days I was always aware and impressed by female interest and involvement in the garden, especially if it extended beyond flowers and perfume. I saw and learned quickly that some women were just as interested as I was in all things botanical.

I am fortunate to have married a woman who is just as excited in spending as much time as possible outdoors with nature. What I have learned is that while I may be more noisy, more 'boastful', Michele is no less active or involved, in her own way. It's far from inbalanced. It's easy to assume that I as the 'man' do all the hard work and she does the 'soft' stuff, but I found she puts on the gum boots and digs with the spade and gets as dirty as I do (most times)! Yes, there are some jobs I can do better but there are just as many jobs that she can do better. At the end of each day we exchange garden stories and share our scratches and bruises. All the while planning the next day's foray!

Since we've been together (approx 25 years) I've always had this desire to talk plants with the public, Michele much less so. Serendipitously I found I was often not only talking about the plants in our garden, but also of Michele's projects and her special or favourite plants. The public often found the stories about Michele very relatable as most of our garden visitors are women!

Just as serendipitously I have also become acutely aware of other women who also like to grow cacti and succulents, especially the quieter ones, much like Michele. I somehow feel  compelled to write about some of these women, who deserve more credit.  I often find snippets of interesting female succulent persons of great interest everywhere I look. While I do travel widely, I want to share mostly Australian stories.

I don't want this to be a feminist or a politically correct issue, it is just that I have very personal reasons for this topic being of great interest to me.

Follow the link below to the next page with a very unusual yet interesting article on this topic.

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