Marlene and Roy Williams enjoy being out in their garden, which features a range of plants. 64614Picture: Stewart Chambers
By Emma Sun
BY Marlene Williams’ logic, growing tropical plants is the best substitute for not living in the tropics.
The avid gardener, along with her husband Roy Williams, loves to do the gardening in their Berwick home.
They have been avid orchid growers for more than 18 years, and were one of the founding members of the Berwick Orchid Club, which started 17 years ago.
“We were made life members just over three years ago,” Marlene said.
“We have such an enjoyable time at the club; you make great friends that seem to hang around forever.”
The club occasionally has orchid outings, usually visits to commercial growers. It also holds its annual show each year in about October.
During the height of their orchid growing, the couple had more than 900 types of orchids in their garden.
“We just started off growing a few orchids for a hobby,” Marlene said.
“We got interested and then we went to shows and started to buy orchids upon orchids upon orchids.
“It’s like a disease – once you have one, you see another flower and think ‘I’ve got to have it’ and before long you have lots of orchids.”
After downsizing to a smaller property and selling a number of their plants, they now have about 200 orchids.
“We sold a lot, it was getting too much,” Marlene said.
“(The 200 orchids) are more than enough to keep us going. My husband does the hard work on them, I just admire the beauty.”
Although both fairly active orchid club members, Marlene said her main interest was in palms and ferns.
“I can’t live in the tropics so I’ve got to make it in my garden here,” she said.
“There’s not much colour around this time of the year but my main interest is my garden. I’ve got ferns, a few palms, cordylines, roses, stag ferns, elkhorns and other bits and pieces.”
Marlene also tries to stay up-to-date with her hobby by reading anything that may contain new bits and pieces about gardening and listening to gardening programs.
She says gardening is something that she and Roy will definitely continue to do for as long as they can.
“My husband turned 80 back in February and my birthday is coming up so things are slowing down a bit,” she said.
“But we will definitely continue gardening for as long as we can.”
