Anna-Marie’s long love for succulents
TEBERARIO – Resident has been patiently growing her garden for 39 years, with the tallest cactus tree now five meters.
Resident Anna-Marie Lemmerer has been growing and maintaining a beautiful, green and indigenous succulent garden for about 39 years since first moving to the area.
“I moved here in 1979 from Austria with my two kids and husband. My love for gardening is definitely from when I was younger and my grandmother did a lot of vegetable gardening and grew flowers for the graveyard. I learnt to love it from there, gardening for me is very fulfilling and it calms me, I certainly enjoy it a lot.”
Succulents are plants that store water in their stems, roots and leaves, that is why Lemmerer has been able to keep up with her big garden. She doesn’t have to spend a lot of money or water to maintain these plants. The plant family includes aloe, haworthia, sedum, sempervivum and cacti. Lemmerer said she maintains the plants by putting self-made compost about every four months, which she also sells. “We water the garden once every week or 10 days and we don’t use fertiliser.”
Lemmerer admitted that she had to do a lot of planting when she first arrived at her new home, “When we moved here there was very little in the garden and my tallest cactus tree, which is about five metres now, was only half a metre then.”
The garden Lemmerer has been growing for the past 39 years is water-saving, “It’s easier for me to grow this garden because like I said I grow my own compost, I don’t use a lot of water and everything is natural around here.”
Lemmerer said she was also visited by the Horticultural Society in February this year, the more than 100-year-old society is an established garden club. “I love people coming to view my garden, it is such a reward for all my years in the garden.”
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