Inspiring Women Magazine May 2022

May 2022, Volume 6 Issue 2

profiles
9
15
17
23
CONTENTS
A World Filled
with Lilies
Amanda Kreuder-
Carrington on her
garden and
especially her love
of lilies.
My Garden: Heidelberg, Germany
Rebekka Lingshirn takes us on a tour of
her garden.
Gardening Is All
About Trade-Offs
Margaret Hunter
tells us about
trying to balance
the environment
and gardening.
My Garden: Vienna, Austria
Ida Vickers takes us on a tour of
her garden.
25 Gardening in
Colombia Brings
Peace to the
Mind Sandra
Montgomery
finds that
gardening brings
her serenity.
34
My Garden: Molineuf, France
Kit Desjacques takes us on a tour of
her garden.
41
43
48
50
55
My Garden: Stettlen, Switzerland
Judy Steinemann takes us on a tour of
her garden.
Filling Old Doc
Bradley’s Garden
with Herbs
Francine
Mihalasky has
filled this garden
with herbs.
My Garden: Cologne, Germany
Lesley Taubert takes us on a tour of
her garden.
“The Sheer Array
of Plant Life and
Rare Species Is
Astonishing.”
Kathy Limbaugh
tends to her garden
in Pennsylvania.
My Garden: Eppelhein, Germany
Lori Dugan takes us on a tour of
her garden.
57 From Florist to
Flower Rescuer
Kati Mayfield
started a non-profit
to deal with waste in
the floral industry.
36
A Bird, Bee and
Amphibian
Friendly Area
Sharon Smillie
would like us all to
create gardens that
attract nature.
2

features
13
Brown Thumb Redemption: The
Splendor of Keukenhof
Mary Adams gets inspiration from the
blooms of Keukenhof.
21
30
A Club Inspires :
Inspiring Women
Pollinators Liz
Janson tells us
about the
importance of
pollinators to us all.
Barcelona Women’s Network
46
“GUAYULE? I’ll
bet you can’t
even
pronounce it!”
Maggie Palu
grows this
amazing crop
in her garden
in France.
39
“Some People
Travel, I
Move!” Anna
Gruner-Hegge
finds inspiration
in the landscapes
of Colombia.
52
Inspiring Reads: Jeanne, Seeds of
Infinity AW Aquitaine member Mary
Bruton Sandifer tells us about her
book and the inspiration for it.
in every issue
4
5
6
A Note from the Editor
Liz MacNiven
Gardens as a Touchstone for Life
More about what you can find in this
issue from Elsie Bose.
Garden Party Invitation
8 Advertisers Index
62 Inspiring You
63 More About This Issue
64 Coming in September 2022
65
That’s Inspired!
3

“T
o plant a garden is to
believe in
tomorrow.”
Welcome to another green issue of Inspiring
Women magazine. This time it’s about gardens
and all things gardening-related and featuring the
stories of six women’s different journeys into
gardening from their earliest days. We also have a
beautiful photographic feature, showcasing six
different gardens cared for by FAWCO
members. Then there are features on pollinators,
a plant you’ve probably never heard of before
(Guayule), and the beauty of Colombia’s
landscape, as well as our usual A Club Inspires and
book feature, Inspiring Reads. So lots to dig into!
Are you a gardener? Do you have green fingers?
My maternal
grandmother
definitely had
very green
fingers.
Although she
stood only just
five feet tall, she
was a force to
be reckoned
with. I
remember
hours spent in
the garden
pottering
around with
Gardening with Grandma, me aged
five
Audrey Hepburn, Actor
her. In the
autumn we
would help
sweep up the leaves along the drive, while in the
summer we helped picked all the wonderful fruit
and vegetables she had grown and admired her
stunning, fragrant roses. Grandma’s raspberries
and blackberries were a particular highlight of the
year I remember.
One of my special treasures is a delicate, clearglass,
bubble-shaped vase with black dots on it
that belonged to her. I remember when I went to
stay she would allow me to fill it with forget-menots
or other small flowers from the garden. That
level of responsibility for something so fragile...
Wow, I felt so grown up!
A Note from
the Editor
My mum, unlike her mum, wasn’t a huge outdoor
gardener. But whenever you were out for a walk,
she knew the names of every wildflower you came
upon and her house plants were things of legend.
Amongst many specimens there was a yucca plant
that grew as high as the ceiling and too many
spider plants to count.
I don’t think I could describe myself as having the
green fingers which both Grandma and Mum had,
but I am very willing to experiment in our garden.
For me, as Audrey Hepburn said, the garden is
often about the future, the promise of things to
come. During the pandemic, where here in the UK
we were confined to our homes for many weeks
unable to see friends and family, our garden
became our refuge and companion. It gave us
hope that things would get better, that things
would continue to grow and thrive and that we
would have a tomorrow. We spent many pleasant
hours, especially in 2020, tending it and enjoying it
and gave daily thanks for its existence; we still do.
Talking of growing and thriving, we have another
new member of the Inspiring Women team.
Kristin Haanæs of AWC Oslo, who has been
working behind the scenes on FAWCO
publications for many years, has kindly agreed to
join us as our layout coordinator starting with the
fall issue. We know she can only improve the
magazine with her wealth of knowledge of all
things layout-based.
I hope you enjoy reading the profiles and features
in this issue. Please do let us know what you think
by completing our survey (p. 62) or sending me
your thoughts at
inspiringwomen.editor@fawco.org.
Liz x
4

Gardens as a
Touchstone For Life
Inspiring Women Magazine founder Elsie Bose
introduces our gardening theme.
I am not a gardener, but there have always been
gardens in my life. My grandfather found his
vegetable garden at the cottage a great source of
relaxation in the summers. His idea of kicking back
was to abandon his lawyerly suit jacket and tie, roll
up his shirt sleeves, don a straw hat and spend
early Saturday morning deciding what fruits and
vegetables were ready for the weekend’s meals.
As my family moved from place to place, it
seemed we were always doing something in the
yard. In Colorado, as I remember, what grew really
well was…snow! When we moved to Hawaii, my
father planted a gardenia bush under my parents’
bedroom window so that the beautiful fragrance
would greet my mom every morning.
As an adult, I have found gardens lovely but
gardening hard. It has been a blessing that most
of my homes have been apartments. Until now.
Which is why this issue of Inspiring Women is
perfect for me! Reading the profiles and features
has inspired me to begin to grow something. More
than the technical aspects, the PASSION that these
women have for “working the earth” has made me
intrigued by the possibilities.
I am looking forward to June 8 th when Inspiring
Women hosts its first live event - a Garden Party
on the Hopin platform. We’ll kick off the event with
our signature cocktail “Mothers of Nature” toast,
recipe to be provided! We will have interesting
presentations on the main stage and some
amazing sessions presented by our profilees and
featured members. And a couple of surprises! If
you want to turn your “all thumbs” into a “green
thumb” or just want to join in the fun, register now
(see invitation on p. 6)!
Elsie
advertising@fawco.org
5

June 8, 20
Inspiring W
“It’s a Gar
Celebrating New Beginnings! Join us for a couple of
presenters from around the world speak to the grou
their gardens. There will be special interactive sessio
questions and get tips for your garden.
We’ll start with a virtual Pimm
Sessions Include:
• Permaculture Gardening - A Revolutio
Disguised as Gardening
• Gardening Adventures with Children
• “Let’s Get Dirty” the Benefits of Comp
• Busy Bees Bring Better Blooms
• And More!
6

omen—Live!
den Party”
22 19:00 CET
fun-filled and informative hours as FAWCO
p about their passion for growing and nurturing
ns with FAWCO members where you can ask
’s Royale and end with…cake!
n
osting
To Join in the Fun:
It’s FREE!
CLICK TO REGISTER
OR go to https://hopin.com/events/inspiringwomen-live-garden-party-june-2022
7

advertisers index
We appreciate your support of our advertisers!
Lauren Mescon, Rodan + Fields p.60 Lauren, member of AWC
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London & Capital p.38 Whether you are a US citizen living abroad, or a foreign entity with US reporting,
their dedicated teams take care of your wealth, giving you time to concentrate on the things that matter
to you. London & Capital has been supporting FAWCO since 2016.
Janet Darrow Real Estate p.54 Around the corner or a world away, contact
Janet Darrow, FAUSA member, to find the best properties. FAWCO referrals to
Janet help the Target Program!
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member of FAUSA and AW Surrey, sells pajamas that are cozy, cheerful and
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London Realty Intl. p.20 London Realty Intl. is owned by AWC London member
Lonnée Hamilton, a worldwide property consultant. Her firm works with the
best agents across the globe to fulfill your property needs.
The Short List p.29 The Short List assists students with the college admissions
and application processes. Ask your club to schedule a webinar to acquaint
members on how to get started.
Throughout the years FAWCO has relied on advertisers and sponsors to augment its
income. This revenue has allowed FAWCO to improve services and give it the flexibility to try the
latest innovations to enhance the FAWCO experience. FAWCO’s advertising partners believe in
our mission and support our goals. Some directly support our activities and projects.
We encourage club leadership throughout the FAWCO network to share our publications with
their membership. Please support them! Our advertising partners have
valuable products and services and we want your members to take
advantage of what they offer. For more information on these advertisers
or if you have any questions about FAWCO’s advertising program, please
contact Elsie Bose: advertising@fawco.org.
Why not advertise in Inspiring Women? FAWCO club members - do you
want to take your business worldwide? Contact Elsie Bose at
advertising@fawco.org to get started. We offer great rates and comprehensive packages for
almost any budget.
8
The next issue of Inspiring Women magazine Women and
Youth: Inspiring Future Generations will be published on
September 15, 2022.

PROFILE
A World Filled
with Lilies
Amanda Kreuder-Carrington, a
member of AIWCD (American
International Woman’s Club
Düsseldorf,) has always loved
gardens and especially lilies.
Amanda Kreuder-Carrington
I grew up in a private estate in Hertfordshire,
England, called Loudwater. It’s not so nice now
with the M25 motorway – hence the move! The
M25 circumnavigated its way around the Green
Belt of London. My father was a surveyor/estate
agent/property developer, and my mother was a
travel buff/relocation agent. My brother was a
financial analyst and later a captain in Macau.
Leaving home
Initially, I joined Harrods for a buying/
management course, as I honestly had zero idea
what I should do or fancied doing later on. It was
the most incredible experience, working in
various departments. I loved Men’s Accessories,
Young Crowd (trendy 14–18 year olds), the hat
department with Philip Treacy – just wow, and for
the nicest ladies ever, the Plus Size department
and above all the styling department, where I
encountered a few famous faces. Once a week, I
did my BTEC course on Leicester Square at the
College for International Distributive Trades.
Cupid strikes!
I met my husband in 1992 just past midnight at
Pizza Pomodoro on Beauchamp Place in
Knightsbridge. I remember being super cross as it
was supposed to be a “girls’ night” and as usual
my friend was looking for a wingman! My “future”
hubby arrived and sat himself between me and
his boss and, being German, was very persistent...
I was not used to that.
So “it” happened quite quickly, with him leaving
his futures company and wanting to relocate back
to Germany with me in tow, me obviously with
rubbish German skills at the time. Weirdly, I
missed the sizeable earthquake Düsseldorf
experienced during the three weeks we were
apart. That was 1992 and since then, we have
built a house and had two gorgeous kids: Henry,
22, is taking a small break from studying
architecture, and Lilly, 19, decided after seeing
Henry come home after four months in Africa that
traveling and studying were not for her. Instead,
she moved to Barcelona in January and is buying
a small flat in very green Sant Antoni, not far from
the beach.
We are still here in the house we built in
Schwalmtal in 1996 with our fab southeast-facing
back garden. Schwalmtal, which is on the Dutch
border, is 25 minutes from central Düsseldorf
in Germany.
Me as a little girl
My love of gardening
As I child, I loved borrowing neighbors’ dogs and
taking them on epic walks or cycling through
different areas. You need a reason to stop in front
9

of people’s houses and be a little nosy, and with a
dog or bike, nobody thinks twice about it. My
favorite colors are green and blue – so if you think
about that for a second, those are the colors that
connect nature (earth) to air (the sky). It doesn’t
matter where you are, the love for that comes
from taking time to see something that costs
absolutely nothing, but gives your soul and heart
energy and fulfillment.
First gardening memories
I totally have an affinity for gardening and think it
must stem from my memories as a baby. I know
people say your first memories are from the age
of four onwards, but mine truly start from our
Tudor-style cottage with seven ponds, especially
the one closest to the house with the hugest
weeping willow over it. I remember being placed in
my Silver Cross carriage with a net over it and
listening and watching the weeping willow move
and sway and the sounds of the birds. Later on in
church school, I remember being so excited to
bring huge white pampas grass to decorate at
harvest festival (the collection of food cans for the
home for the elderly held way less interest to me
as a child). They were the “main” feature, and I felt
so incredibly proud that my father allowed them
to be cut for that purpose to take pride of place
around the altar at the church.
Funny fact about me!
I am, or used to be, ambidextrous. I was a little on
the naughty side as a child, so I used to charge
money for writing other people’s lines in school: “I
must not do … anymore.” What nobody realized is
that I could write from left and right, so 100 lines
was quick and easy. It took a while but one of the
teachers finally caught on and started assigning
Filming for the TV show
super long sentences, so much harder and thus
not a quick job anymore!
My garden on TV
One of the best experiences with my garden (apart
from my professional gardeners that come once a
year and ask me: “What is that? What plant is that?
Where can we get that?” This makes zero sense as
I know the Latin names, but can’t work in this
profession without a qualification) has to be when
the German television station WDR came to do a
feature on my garden - particularly its grass and
how I get it like that. What a fun day that was! If
you click to watch the video below, you can see it’s
just five or six minutes long, but the actual filming
took over six hours.
10

Dutch gardens
I am always a little excited when driving across to
Venlo (10 minutes away) or Roermond (18
minutes) on the Dutch border, as I love to spy on
all those gorgeous gardens. (Being the driver is a
little annoying as you miss so much.) The Dutch
are so truly gifted in their landscaping ideas and
concepts. When we built our house, all my
German neighbors laughed and said those trees/
plants from Holland won’t last, the rabbits and
hares will get them. But of course, they didn't!
Admittedly, our grass gets loads of comments, so I
am always very excited to get back to the UK, not
only to see family and friends, but also because
we need our 4 in 1! This is an amazing product
that you use after aerating and scarifying the
lawn. It kills the moss and weeds, fertilizes and
adds seeds for re-growth. Initially, the whole
street believed I flew in English grass as I worked
for an airline – I personally love a good prank.
The future of gardening
I totally think the pandemic has changed things. I
am an avid listener to podcasts by people from all
over the world, and the one thing they have all
said is that as city dwellers they have needed
space outside and a connection with nature. The
amount of UK and US-based friends/podcasters
who now are renting an allotment or have built
themselves raised beds for vegetables and flowers
is fantastic – I could not be happier! Plus, there are
those sudden indoor gardeners who have got
themselves a greenhouse worth of plants and
fresh flowers to bring the outside in. Like
a pheromone for pets, flowers and plants can
have that same well-being effect, so what’s not to
love? However, hay fever and allergies also seem
to have increased tenfold – but the visuals and the
scents are so worth it in my opinion.
My top gardening tip
My one little tip, which is totally ecofriendly, is how
to deal with those annoying night snails! Either
surround your plants with washed-out eggshells
or buy a trap and – I kid you not – just put cheap
beer in it and your leaves and flowers won’t get
munched on. My father-in-law (like me) loved his
garden and vegetables, and his tip was to always
plant a row of carrots next to a row of onions, as it
stops the pests. For many of you out there who
love a glass of wine – go visit a vineyard! All the
best lay out two rows of vines ending in a rose
bush to stop the pests from attacking the grapes.
Protecting plants from frost
Nature is incredible, and we have to take the good
with the bad. Yes, it is annoying when all the buds
are out, and there is a sudden frost causing those
gorgeous buds to drop off. Obviously, you can’t do
anything about the climate, but for those who
have pots decorating terraces or balconies, the
answer is super simple. Get an empty pot, take a
length of big bubble wrap and snip it like you were
lining the bottom of a cake tin. Line the inside of
the pot with it, add gravel or flint to the bottom,
then the earth and then your plant. Make sure the
stem or roots aren’t impacted (don’t want to use
the word “strangled”, but you know what I mean.)
This way your plants won’t get over-dry or frozen,
your terracotta pots won’t pop and you don’t need
a greenhouse. Works every time, even for subtropical
plants down to minus 10 degrees Celsius.
11

My favorite flower
My all-time favorite is lily of the valley. My greataunt
looked after me a lot, and she had a sizeable
patch of them; my best friend’s surname was
Lilley and we call her Lil; and my daughter is Lilly
as well – both my grandmother and my mother
have Lillian in their names. Even my
close German/Polish girlfriend is a Lilly.
My favorite season
I love late spring/early summer when the colors
start to pop in my garden. I really dislike being
away at Easter, as that’s when the star and
tulip magnolias come out, the azaleas and
the rhododendrons make their way through, and
my amazing wisterias bloom on our “magic
garden” arch. The colors are incredible, and I have
hosted two events during this season to capture
the colors of everything with the scents and the
feeling of being somewhere else.
12

PROFILE FEATURE
Brown Thumb Redemption:
The Splendor of Keukenhof
By Mary Adams, member of AWC The Hague
In my garden
I am
digging, DIGging, DIGGING
stomping through the beds in my boots
the seed packets are opened, sprinkled,
and sowed
hopeful green growth and then
yellow spots, aphids, and dry dirt
The plants turn as brown as my thumb
Alas, my Mortuis Plantis!
At Keukenhof gardens
I am
walking, WALKing, FLOATING
set adrift on a river of flowers
the bulbs are sprouted paintings in
streaming colors
waves of shades, tints, and tones
luscious multicolored perennial
herbaceous splendiferous
bulbiferous geophytes
O grandiose TULIPmania!
Inside the Pavilions
I am
Staggering, REELing, DANCING
at this cultivated annual reunion
where flora and creativity intersect in visual
delight
families and genus frolic together
it is a feast for the senses
Amaryllidaceae and Brodiaea
Amid the fragrance of Asparagaceae
O ecstasy of Orchidelirium!
At home
I examine my brown thumb.
I spot a tiny green vein of hope.
I start
Digging, DIGging, DIGGING.
13

Keukenhof Gardens
14

PROFILE FEATURE
My Garden: Heidelberg, Germany
Rebekka Klingshirn, of Heidelberg IWC, shows us around her garden
Where do you live/where is your
garden? I live in Eppelheim, outside of
Heidelberg. We live in my grandparents’
house, with a huge garden. The garden
was beautiful, but over the years, nothing
would grow underneath the tall conifers.
We decided to take down the trees –
leaving only a magnolia, a lilac bush and
lots of lawn.
How long have you been gardening, and
what made you start? I have been
gardening for almost five years now
because I wanted flowers for vases, but
realized that I preferred them in the
garden. The pandemic really kicked things
off for me, as gardening was something,
amidst all the chaos, that gave me peace of
mind and exercise.
What is the size and style/type of
your garden? In the beginning, we
were happy to just have a lawn and not
much garden work to do. Nothing has
to be perfect in my garden, as I really
don’t know what I am doing half of the
time; everything is trial-and-error. It is
definitely evolving year after year.
15

What do you grow in your garden? I
have lavender, sage, thyme, crocus,
raspberries, blueberries, black and red
currants on one side of the garden – in
addition to my raised flower beds full of
eggplants, tomatoes, basil, strawberries
and cucumbers and on the other side, I
have flowers like peonies, grape
hyacinths, primroses, lilies and irises.
What is different about your garden
from where you previously lived? At my
parents’ (and my childhood) home, I did not
care about anything to do with the garden
at all, but loved picking cherries from their
tree. Now that I have my own garden, I
appreciate the time outside, looking after
my tomatoes and just being in my
hammock to enjoy everything.
What do you love most
about your garden? I
absolutely love my wonderful
magnolia. Every spring, I am
impatiently awaiting the (wild)
horned violets (Viola cornuta -
tufted pansy?) and just cannot
get enough of the peonies. I
love being able to just “forage”
and am very proud of the
variety of tomatoes I grow
from seeds.
16

PROFILE
Gardening Is All
About Trade-Offs
Margaret Hunter, of AWC
Denmark, had a passion for seed
catalogues as a young girl. Today
that passion leads her to focus on
growing fruit and vegetables.
Originally I am from Atlanta, Georgia. I remember
climbing magnolia trees (they have lots of
branches and are easy to climb). In May, their
dinner-plate-size, creamy white flowers smell
gorgeous. Another memory: a neighbor had a
swimming pool which she let our family use.
Sometimes our mother would take us there after
dinner and skinny-dip, which seemed very daring
at the time, even for a 10-year-old. The pool had a
fence around it, where our neighbor had planted
moon flowers. They are in the same family as
morning glories, but at dusk, you can watch their
flowers unfold. It’s quite dramatic.
For the last 30 years I have lived in Copenhagen,
but during the COVID-19 pandemic we moved to
my husband’s childhood home in the country, and
we are enjoying spending more time there now
during our retirement.
So now, more than 50 years after those nights in
Georgia, I find myself living near the Danish
Margaret Hunter
coastline, where I regularly go skinny-dipping
without my mother, and it does not seem daring
anymore at all. And this year, a friend gave me
some moon flower seeds! I am so excited.
Leaving home
My first stop was to go to Davidson College in
North Carolina. It had been a men’s college; I was
part of the second graduating class of
women. Again, it seemed very daring at the
time. But now when I look back, Davidson was
relatively close to home (about a five-hour drive),
it was/is a small liberal arts college with a good
reputation, not exactly bohemian. It didn’t require
much in the 1970s South to feel rebellious.
Into the world of work
After college, I worked for two years at a small
weekly newspaper located just across the street
from the college. Many adventures there. It was
VERY local. One time we published a two-page
spread of photos – only photos, no identifying
captions – of places around our small town that
we thought should be cleaned up a bit. This tiny
bit of journalism made locals so angry that we lost
a lot of advertising.
I started working at the newspaper in 1979, the
time of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant
accident, which according to Wikipedia is “the
most significant accident in US commercial
nuclear power plant history.” At the same time,
Duke Power was building McGuire Nuclear
Station, located about four minutes upwind of our
town and with the same design as Three Mile
Island. Half the people in our town worked for
Duke Power, and the other half were academics
working for Davidson College. Needless to say,
nuclear power was an extremely divisive issue.
Bunias orientalis, a drought-tolerant vegetable from the
Caucasus
Moving around the US
From there I moved back to Atlanta to work at an
17

seeds and tried lots of things. But getting an
education, establishing a career, marriage and
having kids – none of this left much time for
gardening, though I always had a lot of potted
plants indoors. Then, late in life, I returned to
some of my first loves, which included gardening –
now with a focus on vegetables and fruit. When
my mother-in-law died in 2013, we bought my
husband’s childhood home with a big garden, and
things took off. After my father died in 2014 and
my mother in 2015, I found gardening was
extraordinarily healing.
Ready for a spot of gardening
advertising agency as a typographer. After two
more years there, I attended the University of
Missouri Journalism School. From there I moved to
New York City, where I met my future Danish
husband, Bjarne.
Moving to Denmark
About the only reason for an American to move to
Denmark is if they marry a Dane. That’s what
happened to me. When I told my dad that I
wanted to marry a Dane and move to Denmark,
first he had to look it up on a map to see where it
was. The next day he went down to his local bank
and asked about the tax laws in the country. After
looking up Denmark’s tax policies, the bank man
looked at my dad and asked if it really HAD to be
Denmark that I moved to.
Learning to garden
I am completely self-taught. Of course, I am a
member of several gardening associations in
Denmark, read magazines, and importantly, my
friends include other gardening nerds. I am
learning all the time. Just last week, I walked past
the garden of a neighbor and discovered her up a
ladder in an apple tree. I asked her what she was
doing, and it turned out she was “planting”
mistletoe. You glue their sticky small white berries
onto the branches of an apple, beech or poplar
tree, and in two years you get a Christmas
mistletoe. This was certainly not anything I have
tried before. Before I could protest, she pressed a
dozen of the berries into my hand. I have yet to
plant them.
My gardening successes
I have tried a lot of permaculture perennial
vegetables, berry bushes and fruit trees. My
husband grows vegetables the traditional way –
tilling the ground every spring, planting the iconic
annual vegetables like potatoes, carrots, beets,
My life has been a bit like Forrest Gump’s. My
career shouldn’t have survived an international
jump, but it did. I am fairly certain my parents
looked at my fiancé and said to themselves that
this marriage was not going to work. But it did.
When I look back, if I had been my parents, I
would have been quite worried about my
daughter entering an international marriage, and
mine were. But 34 years and three kids later, I am
still married to the same man. (And he likes to
garden, too.)
A love of gardening
My dad was a lifelong enthusiastic gardener, so
maybe it’s something I inherited. As a teenager, I
loved reading seed catalogues, mostly flowers.
Park Seed catalogue was my favorite – all the
photos and small descriptions. I bought lots of
My husband of 35 years, Bjarne, weeding out the thistles
18

trade-offs and finding a balance between wild
areas and high-efficiency farms. Let’s hope our
politics improve.
Me with my daughter Peyton and husband Bjarne
celery root, leeks, onions, pumpkins, etc. I grow
things that nobody has ever heard of (except
other permaculture people), such as brunius
orientalis, called “takkeklap” in Danish. I love
perennial kale! We find the two ways work very
well together – the perennials supply a lot of food
already in April and continue through the
summer, whereas the traditional annuals really
only start up in July and later.
With gardening, you experiment and see what
works. One spring I planted sweet potatoes, which
grow like weeds in Atlanta, Georgia, where I grew
up. I waited eagerly, but nothing ever came up. In
the fall, I dug them up to see what had happened,
and the answer was nothing. Turns out the soil
temperature in Denmark is just too cold. Perfect
for storing sweet potatoes, but not growing them.
So we had some perfectly stored sweet potatoes,
and we ate them. End of story.
Importance of biodiversity
People don’t understand biodiversity and the
value of things like stinging nettles (which support
something like 130 different insects, and make an
excellent pasta dish and soup, by the way). There
are too few truly wild areas. I am guilty of this
myself. Mother Nature is powerful, sometimes
violent and truly uncontrollable, and I think most
experienced gardeners are a wee bit scared of
her. Also, letting Mother Nature do her thing
reduces our role to pretty much nothing – which
hammers our natural egocentricity. So it may feel
UNnatural to us to live with nature.
On the other hand, people blame the farmers for
mono-cropping and using pesticides, dominating
nature, but we couldn’t feed ourselves without
high-efficiency farms, and I am certainly not prostarvation
for anyone. From what I have read, the
answer may be to allocate more land to wild
areas, but at the same time make farms even
more efficient and intensive.
Unfortunately, our political decision-making
processes are usually not good at evaluating
Pandemic changes
I do think the pandemic has changed things.
People have been forced to taste a bit of
quiet. Some (like me) found they liked it more
than expected. The pandemic has forced
employers to accept virtual work to a greater
degree. Combined with a rising interest in organic
food and exploding real estate prices in the cities,
this will encourage people to live farther out,
because a long commute three times a week may
be acceptable where the same commute five days
a week would be too much. All this is good news
for the future of gardening.
I have never been a survivalist, hoarding two years
of canned goods. But having a robust garden gives
me a sense of security, both for myself and my
children. Perhaps this has to do with the
pandemic, which could – correction here – which
absolutely will happen again, nobody knows
when. Perhaps it has to do with the knowledge
that the Russian airforce could fly over Denmark’s
airspace with four minutes’ warning or less.
Maybe it has to do with my sense that in order to
create enough green energy, we will probably
need to return to nuclear power – which, while
now much safer designs exist, from what I read,
will always be a tempting terrorist target. Maybe I
am so worried about climate change, and don’t
know what to do about it – other than growing a
garden and using public transportation more.
(While writing this, I am sitting on a regional train
heading to south Denmark, having left the car in
Copenhagen.) Maybe I am just getting old. In any
case, we are living in a time of great change, and
gardening gives me a sense of security and
literally keeps me grounded. No matter what
happens, life will win out. The world recovered
even from the great extinctions of the past.
No gardening without compost
Learning new skills
This past year, I learned how to use an old-
19

fashioned scythe. It’s a skill. I had to attend two
workshops to learn. Now I need to go practice. It’s
important to me so I don’t have to start a noisy
lawn mower that chokes up every time I want to
cut some tall grass. Using a scythe is quiet,
meditative, rhythmic – swish, swish, swish. It’s also
slow – I am not selling my lawnmower yet.
Gardening trade-offs
Gardening is all about trade-offs. I do
permaculture; we are zealots about adding
organic material back into the soil, including lots
of mulch. But guess what – slugs love the organic
material just like the plants do. To get rid of the
slugs, I don’t want to use poison, I don’t have a
good pond to keep ducks (they eat slugs), I don’t
have any hedgehogs in my backyard yet (they also
eat slugs), and I don’t want to use my evenings
patrolling my garden and chopping slugs. So I live
with the slugs.
The best movie on gardening that I’ve seen is The
Biggest Little Farm. It shows how finding balance
takes time and experience, practice and patience.
My favorite season
Spring! Hope and light return. The bushes and
trees that have appeared dead suddenly spring
forth with life. It’s exciting. I try very hard to enjoy
autumn to the same degree, try to enjoy the
coming darkness and cold as the world prepares
itself for a time of quiet winter. But I don’t
succeed. Spring wins every time!
In my permaculture garden, island of Moen, Denmark
My latest garden purchase
I just bought a bird house for owls. This is a big
thing, roughly the size of a standard moving box.
Even a small owl will eat two-three mice a day,
which will protect my fruit bushes much more
effectively than my cat ever could.
If I were a flower…
I hope I would perhaps be a dandelion. They have
looooong roots that go straight down into the dirt.
Drought does not stop them. It’s difficult to pull
them up. They sprout beautiful flowers, which are
edible, and which turn into a million seeds born by
the wind. Dandelions are tough. I admire plants
and people who are survivors.
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20

PROFILE FEATURE
Inspiring Women Pollinators
Liz Janson, of FAUSA, on the importance of bees to us all.
Did you know that the honey bees (Apis mellifera)
responsible for pollinating are ALL females?! The
female members of a honey bee colony are the
worker bees, and they collect the pollen for the
protein needs of developing brood (larvae) and
for carbohydrates (nectar, which is turned into
honey by dehydration). Worker bees inside the
colony dehydrate the nectar into honey and cap it
with a thin layer of wax to preserve it for when
they need it during periods of dearth.
At least 75% of all flowering plants need some
kind of help with pollinating the estimated one
third of the food we eat. Bees alone are
responsible for billions of dollars of US
agricultural productivity, and they are the most
efficient and effective of the insect pollinators.
Honey bees are not native to North America! They
were introduced from Europe in the 17th century
to pollinate the fruit trees and fruits that early
settlers brought with them. Honey bee colonies
spread west with the expansion of the settlers.
There are over 3600 species of bees in North
America and 20,000 species worldwide. Native
bees often specialize in pollinating one plant, but
honey bees are generalists and forage on many
different plants. Honey bees must collect nectar
from over two million flowers to produce 16
ounces of honey!
How pollination works
When a pollinator reaches into a flower with its
mouth, beak or tongue for nectar, it picks up
pollen on its hair or feathers. Then it flies off to
the next plant, unknowingly carrying and sharing
pollen for reproduction. Three of the most
important pollinators are bees, birds and bats.
Not all plants require the help of a pollinator
(birds, bats, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles,
Green sweat bee, Augochlora pupa
wasps, small mammals and bees); some use the
air or water or self-pollination.
Impacts of climate change
Data and anecdotal observations show that
our climate is changing, regardless of where in
the world we live. Not only are we experiencing
warmer overall temperatures, but the increasingly
extreme fluctuations from cold to hot and back
again are having an impact on our pollinators
through shifting bloom periods, declines
in the availability of nutritious forage and
migration patterns.
How you can help
Plant natives! Trees, flowers and bushes that
are native to your location attract local
pollinators, as well as the generalist honey
bees. Natives’ water, sunlight and soil
requirements are already suited to your
environment … it makes it easier to be a
successful gardener when you plant natives!
Eliminate pesticides and herbicides that are
harmful to pollinators. Blossoms treated
with chemicals are often poisonous to
pollinators; some neonicotinoids and other
pesticides are systemic and leach into all
parts of the plants, the earth around them
and the water table. Use mulch instead to
inhibit unwanted growth.
Learn to love weeds! Weeds are only plants
that may not be growing where we want
them to. The “No Mow May” initiative started
in the UK is gradually spreading across
North America. This initiative asks people to
21

leave their lawnmowers in garages and
sheds during the month of May and to
return green spaces to wild flowers and
grasses, which in turn provide nectar and
pollen for our pollinators. For more
information, see the “No Mow May” in the UK
and in North America and a recent article in
the New York Times.
Get active and advocate for pollinators’
health. There are many worldwide and local
organizations that support pollinators’ health
and habitat. Individuals can make a
difference! In my home town of Boulder, CO,
a group of local beekeepers, residents,
University of Colorado, the City of Boulder
and gardeners have joined forces to create a
pollinator corridor through the middle of the
city, Corredor de las Plantas.
Create habitat areas for a variety of
pollinators. Convert a corner of your yard or
a large pot to a habitat area, planting or
seeding plants that bloom starting in early
spring to autumn. Consult local websites or
experts (including FAWCO and FAUSA Master
Gardeners!) to learn what forage will grow
best in your area and climate.
Sun shining through pollen
Many local universities and garden societies
are a wealth of information and resources
for your particular microclimate.
Liz Janson has been keeping bees since 2019, two years
after returning to the US from Munich. She has four
hives on her roof, where she can (and does!) observe
their comings and goings frequently. Active in the
Boulder, CO beekeeping community and Colorado
Master Beekeeping program, Liz enjoys learning about
how to keep bees in managed hives. Through
beekeeping, she became interested in pollinators and
how important they are to our food supply and the
beauty of the world around us. In her spare time, Liz is
president of FAUSA and grandmother to three (almost
four!) young grandchildren.
Summer bees
Support local farmers (and beekeepers!)
by buying food and honey grown in your
area. This includes meat, as well as fruits
and vegetables!
Other resources
In Europe, the EU’s Pollinators Initiative
was launched in 2018. Its policy page
contains many resources about how you
can get involved.
22
Pollinator Partnership is a terrific resource
for more information. While North Americacentric,
it contains excellent information to
learn more.
Liz with granddaughter Zelda in their bee suits

PROFILE FEATURE
My Garden: Vienna, Austria
Ida Vickers, of AWA Vienna, shows us around her garden.
Where do you live/where is your
garden? I live in an allotment garden
community (Kleingartenverein) in the 12 th
district of Vienna.
How long have you been gardening, and
what made you start? We bought the
house at the end of 2019, and I
immediately started planning what to
grow. I have always wanted to grow some
of my own food – inspired by my late
grandfather. I garden in his honor.
What is the size and style/type of
your garden? About 200 m² in total,
but I mainly use the garden at the back
of the house (60 m²?) for my things.
The front is a bit more “presentable”
with a lawn maintained by my English
husband, some fruit trees, and
ornamentals such as roses, spring
bulbs and lavender.
23

What do you grow in your garden?
Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, but
mainly shade-tolerant crops such as
beetroot, lettuce, spinach, because the
back of the house doesn’t get a lot of
sun. There are some fruit trees in the
front as well.
What is different about your garden
from where you previously lived? This is
my first garden.
What do you love most about your
garden? It has saved my sanity during
the pandemic, has given me
community – I run a Facebook group of
over 600 expat gardeners – and it has
fed me and the bees many a meal.
24

PROFILE
Gardening in
Colombia Brings
Peace to the
Mind
After a challenging start, Sandra
Montgomery, of AWC Bogotá, has
found that growing things brings
her peace.
Sandra Montgomery
I am from Bogotá, Colombia. As the second of
four daughters, most of the time I lived in a small
town where my mother had grown up. Think hot
weather, light clothes. I was a happy girl, a free
spirit who loved to play on the streets with my
friends until late. I did not like school at all; I used
to ride bikes, play basketball, hide, swim in the
river and enjoy family gatherings.
Leaving home
My early years were hard. I became a single
mother at 15 years old. My first jobs were
cleaning floors and selling underwear at a chain
store. During this time I went through a period of
true darkness and was using psychoactive
substances and alcohol. Then, in 1993, I faced
death as a result of a car accident that disfigured
my face and my soul. Due to the trauma, I
suffered from panic attacks, depression, anxiety
and being overweight for many years.
But today I live in Tenjo, Colombia, and enjoy a
harmonious, light and airy figure, without the
need for surgery. Presence, self-observation, selflove
and care, acceptance of emotions and fasting
are my best allies today.
Moving forward
I worked for fifteen years in well-known
corporations, specializing in human resources
management and administration. In 2006, I
decided to resign to pursue my dream to study
psychology. So in 2007, I began professional
studies in psychology, integrative Gestalt therapy,
integral yoga and TRE® stress and trauma
releasing exercises, disciplines that today are part
of my everyday life; I specialize in mindful eating.
After completing my studies, I founded the
Serenity Gymnasium of Consciousness, a space
for resting and healing, workshops and retreats. I
am the director of the Serenity Foundation, a nonprofit
entity for the well-being of young
adolescents in pregnancy and vulnerable
situations as part of this.
Life today
Now I work as a human development consultant
for corporate groups and individuals. I live with
my life partner Thomas, taking care of the farm
and business, but most of all enjoying life. I try to
leave ego behind, while living a simple and quiet
life, serving, living each day as it is, in acceptance
and gratitude.
Serenity
A love for gardening
Gardening brings peace to my mind. No thoughts,
no worries, no desires, just enjoying the present
moment. My mother used to talk to the plants; all
of them were beautiful. I think I got my interest in
plants and flowers from her.
25

asparagus, squash, Swiss chard, spinach, lettuce,
kale and herbs is a blessing for me. The colors,
flavors, textures are different. To know that we are
nurturing our bodies with clean and fresh
products, directly from Mother Nature, I think is
totally magical.
Important learning
A couple of years ago we had an extreme cold
season. That is not very common in Colombia.
Most of our trees, flowers and garden died. I did
learn many things though: for example, some
The Montgomery Family
Learning by doing
I’ve had no training or formal education in
gardening. But I have been living in the country for
the last 16 years, cultivating and gardening. With
practice I have been learning and getting more
expertise. I am especially fascinated by succulents.
Last year we hosted a workshop to learn how to
prepare organic compost (Bokashi) and pesticide
(Super Magro).
During the pandemic, I learned to drive a tractor,
prepare the land, sow and cultivate, receiving the
wisdom of Mother Earth. Quite a specialization!
My successes
Harvesting our own potatoes, fruits, onions,
Food grown by me
plants looked dead, but what happens is that they
start releasing some vitamins to the roots to
protect themselves during the cold season, and
when it is over, they grow back stronger and more
beautiful. It was so beautiful because at that
moment I realized that plants are also resilient,
like us. Like a song says, what does not kill you
makes you stronger. Yes, that is true!
Pandemic changes
The pandemic taught us the importance of
appreciating life, not to take it for granted, to live
with less, to take care of ourselves in all our
dimensions. It taught us to appreciate nature,
green and clean air more, taking care of our
natural resources and being more compassionate.
I think more people will look to live outside of the
big cities, have simpler lives, and cultivate their
own food.
The pandemic was a great opportunity, for some
to stop living for appearances and be more
authentic and honest. It was an opportunity to
look inside oneself and maybe stop some of the
habitual behaviors.
Planting out
Things I want to learn
I want to learn more about how to treat fungus
and lack of vitamins in some plants, trees and soil.
I want to learn how to recover the soil with organic
26

Tending the corn
27

territory is a blessing for the variety and
abundance we can enjoy every day of the year.
My secret garden
My secret garden is at the back of our land. It is a
magical corner full of succulents, I have a wind
chime, a couple of colorful ceramics, and a
hanging wooden hummingbird. I want to add
some pots with water for hummingbirds. That
spot brings lots of peace to my soul.
If I were a tree…
This is a funny question for my inner child. I think I
would love to be a mango tree. Big, strong, with
sweet fruits to sweeten peoples lives, with big
branches to provide freshness and shade during
hot days.
My secret garden
and natural products to avoid the use of
chemicals. It is like us: we do not need chemicals
to be healthy; with good, natural nutrients we can
live a bright, vital life.
Living in Colombia
One of the things I love the most about Colombia
is that we can plant, cultivate and harvest the
whole year round. That for me is fascinating. This
Harvesting cabbages
28

29

FEATURE
A Club Inspires:
Barcelona Women’s Network
Karen Holladay, Club President of BWN, introduces her club to
us. BWN is one of seven clubs in FAWCO’s Region 3.
When and why was your club started, and by
whom? BWN was officially founded back in 1998,
by Nancy Nemer, a wonderfully dynamic woman
who felt a need to start an international women’s
club to organize fun events for its members,
explore Barcelona and find ways to help the needy
of Barcelona through fundraising.
From coffee get-togethers, walks and a Gala
Dinner with a raffle and silent auction, the club’s
activities have expanded over the years to
encompass both imported and local traditions
such as annual “Calcotadas” (a very local long
lunch involving a kind of onion!), concerts by a
member who is a well-known singer, holiday
Bazaars and our Heart Pillow Project (a FAWCO
activity done by many clubs in Europe, started by a
member of the AWC Denmark to support women
having breast cancer treatment).
BWN Board Members
BWN Members marching
30

three book clubs (one in Spanish), yoga classes,
lunches, dinners, evening drinks, as well as a wide
range of fundraising events with different themes
involving fashion recycling, music, art, a recent
treasure hunt and really anything else any
member proposes…
Do you raise money for any particular cause?
We have always been a social club with a social
purpose and we care very much about fundraising
for local organizations that mainly support women
and children. As a club for women by women, one
of our great founding pillars is supporting not only
the women in our own community but the women
in the community around us.
BWN Treasure Hunt
How many members do you have, and what
are their nationalities? Pre-COVID-19, we have
had up to 200 members, with many different
profiles: expats who have lived in Barcelona for 40
years, some who are here for just a few years, and
local women who enjoy the very international
community that we have.
The reasons they are here vary hugely: from
coming because their partner has a job here, they
have a job here themselves, or they have just
fallen in love with our wonderful city. We help
them all to make their way here.
Sadly COVID-19 had a big impact on our
organization, which went down to as low as 41
members. Many members returned to their
country of origin, and those living here did not all
renew their membership as there could be no inperson
activities.
We are gradually rebuilding our community, with
former members rejoining and new members
coming on board, and are currently nearly 100.
How does the club run? We have an elected
board consisting of: President, two Vice-
Presidents, Treasurer and Secretary. Positions are
open to all every year, as each position has a
maximum length of time they can serve, i.e., as
President you can serve for two years and other
positions three years.
We do this by organizing fun events with an
entrance fee which goes to our charities. For
example, our most recent event in February,
Fashion Cares, raised just over €3000 in one
afternoon. Our current cause is Lligam Dona, an
association here in Barcelona which has a refuge
for women who have suffered domestic violence.
What was your own favorite activity last year?
Fashion Cares (all about sustainable fashion), just
last month, and Footprints (a fundraising event
based around everything to do with the feet!), in
January, were both great fun because people
came and had fun, listened to some great
musicians and connected with others in and
outside the club in a wonderful atmosphere – all
while raising money!
One of our long-standing members has also just
recently organized our first Treasure Hunt, which
was an outstanding success and raised €220 for
our charity.
What else would you like us to know about
your club? The most important thing about our
club is that we are a community that is deeply
rooted in where we live, with so many members
having made Barcelona their permanent home.
Life-long friendships form in our club and the
support we can give to women in, as well as
outside, the club is hugely strengthened by this.
We have different members organizing different
events and activities, as we really encourage our
members to participate in the club by proposing
their own ideas that may be of interest to others.
Our FAWCO Committee organizes Sharing Culture
gatherings for our diverse membership.
What kind of events do you have in your club?
We have many different events every month
organized by different members: cultural outings,
museum/art gallery visits with guides, concert,
ballet and film viewings, art classes in the parks,
Fashion Cares event
31

Tell us a little about your city and country in
general Barcelona once lived with its back to the
sea, but the 1992 Olympic Games changed
everything. Where there were once abandoned
and empty warehouses, as well as an unsafe
restaurant and beach area, the Olympics
transformed Barcelona into the world-famous,
cosmopolitan city we know today, where the port
and beach area is inviting, safe and a destination
for dining, sailing and family outings. 20% of the
current population is actually foreign.
Barceloneta Beach
For many women coming to Barcelona for the first
time, the club has been a lifeline, because if you
arrive in this city without a job or children of
school age it can be very difficult to meet people,
particularly if you are also coping with learning
Spanish and/or Catalan.
While there are many other very good women’s
groups in Barcelona, many focus on women in the
workplace. At BWN we are proud to say we really
are for ALL women, working or not, retired or just
setting out in life, as we believe that all our
experiences can enrich and help others when we
work and play together.
I fell in love with Barcelona when it was much less
known and have seen the many changes it has
gone through since – mostly good, in terms of
restoring the neglected beautiful buildings and
bringing new life to forgotten neighborhoods.
Tourism has been a driving factor in this
transformation thanks to the Olympics, although
not all locals are happy with the resulting rise in
rents and general cost of living. For me, it is still
the most beautiful city in the world to live in.
What are a few undiscovered gems in your
city? There are almost too many to mention, as
behind almost every main tourist attraction lies a
wealth of lesser-known palaces, secret gardens,
unexpected statues and pretty fountains. In our
recent treasure hunt even members who had
lived here for many years were surprised by some
of the things we found on our route!
I personally still find secret corners in Montjuic or
Collserola, two of the city’s nature areas very
accessible to the city center.
La Sagrada Familia from above
32

Any unusual/interesting traits of the locals?
Again, too many to count! One of my favorites is
the tradition of the Castellers, which involves a
group of people, children included, climbing on top
of each other to make human castles.
One of the strangest is the Cagatio, a wood log that
poops candy at Christmas after being fed scraps of
food for several weeks leading up to Christmas.
Then, children beat it with a stick and beg it to
poop out a Spanish nougat called turrón.
And definitely the most romantic is the Sant Jordi
holiday in honor of Catalunya's Patron Saint (St.
George), celebrated throughout Barcelona with
decorated stands selling books and roses which
people gift each other. Children also dance the
typical dance of Catalunya, the Sardana, at schools
on this special day, often called the Catalan
Valentine’s Day.
33

PROFILE FEATURE
My Garden: Molineuf, France
Kit Desjacques, of AAWE Paris, shows us around her garden.
Where do you live/where is your
garden? We live in an apartment outside
Paris but we spend half our time at the
family country house in Molineuf, France
(Loire Valley), where I am the head (and
only) gardener! I inherited the garden
from my mother-in-law, who started the
garden in 1984 and gave it to me before
she died.
How long have you been gardening, and
what made you start? I’ve been gardening
for most of my 68 years. I think my dad
may have shown me how to plant seeds,
but my mom and two of my siblings are all
serious gardeners. It’s in the genes!
What is the size and style/type of
your garden? 1750 square meters. It is
a large garden with a south-facing
slope in front and a shaded area
behind the house. There are flower
beds carved out of the grass, and trees
(fruit trees and conifers) that create
garden rooms. I like to think of it as an
English cottage garden.
34

What do you grow in your garden?
Mostly flowers, herbs, and fruit. I’m
branching out into vegetables now that
we’re retired and spending more time in
the countryside, but my success has
been limited.
What is different about your garden
from where you previously lived? I
grew up in New Mexico, where
gardening is an extreme sport. Now I live
in a place where cyclamen, primroses
and orchids grow wild in the grass. I
rarely buy plants now. I grow most of my
stock and AAWE has a plant exchange
every spring where we get together for a
potluck lunch and trade plants!
What do you love most about your
garden? I love flowers, but plants with
variegated leaves are even better
because they provide color and interest
even in winter when nothing is
blooming. Heucheras and variegated
sedums are my current favorite plants.
The garden is in a constant state of
change. It has evolved over the twenty
years I’ve been working in it. At first, I
wanted to have one of every plant, but
over the years, it has become more of a
garden than a plant collection. Also, I
am moving toward plants that need
less water to survive.
35

PROFILE
A Bird, Bee and
Amphibian
Friendly Area
Sharon Smillie, of AWC
Amsterdam, believes that it’s
important to have green space to
attract wildlife to gardens.
I grew up on my parents’ hobby farm outside of
Cleveland, Ohio, where I was active in 4-H (a USbased
network of youth organizations), horses,
and spending time outdoors. I helped my parents
in the vegetable garden and was fascinated by the
birds, amphibians and other creatures that visited
our flower garden. I wanted to become a zoologist
or marine biologist but the math got the better of
me, so it was not to be.
Leaving home
Following the death of my mother when I was 20, I
left our farm to go to university, where I received
a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration
and minored in Russian Language. Then in 1992 I
Sharon Smillie
went to teach English to Russian children in
Moscow, progressed my Russian language studies
and traveled.
Moving to Amsterdam
I moved to Amsterdam as a newlywed nearly 22
years ago and my children have grown up here.
Previously I lived two years in London working for
WorldCom MCI and married my husband Martin
there. His job in Tech and Telecommunications
brought us to the Netherlands.
Our two daughters were born in Amsterdam, and
we’ve raised them bilingually, attending Dutch
schools and speaking English with us at home. We
read a lot of English books to them at bedtime as
well as watched English TV programs. They speak
a third language as well and are open to people
from foreign cultures.
What I love about gardening
Being outdoors and getting my hands in the soil,
sowing and reaping the benefit of fresh
blueberries, blackberries, green beans and
tomatoes. I get excited when I see flower bulbs
and perennials starting to pop out of the ground,
wondering what they will look like. I often forget
what I’ve planted and am delighted when I am
surprised by them.
My garden in 2004
36
Starting out in gardening
From a young age I was fascinated by the birds,
amphibians and other creatures that visited our
25-acre farm. I didn’t get involved in gardening
until my kids attended junior high school and I
had more time. I got inspired by the idea of
bringing nature to the city in every way: whether
it’s rooftop gardens, flower gardens that support
birds, bees, butterflies and amphibians, or simple
vegetable gardens. This interest is what led me to
get advice from Vogelsbescherming, a bird

conservation organization that gave me advice on
how to convert my garden into a bird, bee and
amphibian friendly area. So far, I’ve counted about
15 different sorts of birds that have visited and
toads and frogs that return each year.
How I learned to garden
I am self-taught, having read articles, asking
experts’ and friends’ advice, and of course trial
and error, all of which taught me about soil,
exposure, water needs etc.
Changes I would like to see
Introducing amphibians—frogs, toads,
salamanders—and attracting birds, bees and
butterflies into my garden and neighborhood
courtyard. I am glad that our City Council is
encouraging homeowners to remove some of
their tiles to create more green space. It helps with
water runoff and of course to attract nature. I
think the continued efforts of conservation groups
working with the city council help, as well as
getting residents onboard to realize the benefits.
You can make the most of the space, allowing
some for nature and some for our own use. We
have a tiled pathway and terrace area but also
green areas.
Garden differences between the Netherlands
and the US
Here in Amsterdam, some residents tile their
entire garden so that it’s easier to maintain,
although the “Green Thumbs” do their utmost to
My garden
create green spaces throughout the city and in
their own gardens, which does attract birds
and insects. Back in the USA, nature is usually on
our doorstep!
Since the pandemic started I am seeing a trend in
Amsterdam to create more green spaces, even
areas built onto the canals for plants and flowers.
It’s definitely become more green since I moved
here in 2000.
The best and worst piece of gardening advice
you’ve ever received
Best: Go with what works in your garden. In the
beginning I wanted all kinds of flowers and plants,
but at the end of the day only certain ones flourish
in my garden, so this couldn’t be more true and
important for me.
Worst: I was attending a nature workshop and
asked if anyone had frogs and toads laying eggs
because I wanted to introduce them to my garden
and courtyard. A few of the ladies looked at me in
horror and said, “Ewww.” The organizer thought
that if you want nature, go out of the city, but I
couldn’t disagree more.
My favorite season in the garden
I love the summer, when my garden is in full
bloom, and where I sit out in the sunshine,
enjoying a glass of wine or cup of tea, and watch
the North African swallows fly overhead. I’m
curious what happens in my fishpond, and worry
that my goldfish will eat too many tadpoles! In the
evening, at dusk, I sit out and take in the quiet,
listening to birds saying goodnight and watching
bats flying overhead, scooping up insects.
My Garden in 2021
37

38

PROFILE FEATURE
“Some People Travel, I Move!”
Anna Gruner-Hegge, of AWC Bogotá, finds Colombia a photographically
inspiring place to live.
I arrived in Colombia in September 2021, my 15 th
transplantation to date. Once, I followed my
Swedish expat parents, who traveled the world.
For a time, I followed my husband and his
entrepreneurial schemes. Today, I follow my
heart: Chicago, Santa Barbara, Perstorp, Amherst,
New York City, Miami, Chennai, Floreal, Oslo,
Rivière Noire, Sitges, Helsingborg, Mahaai,
Wassenaar and now, finally, incredibly, Bogotá.
This beautiful country is the most topographically
disparate and photographically inspiring place I
have found in a lifetime of moving. I reflected – a
few months ago, I lived in a small coastal town on
the North Sea just one meter above the sea. Now,
unbelievably, I am here, my life jumbled, packed
in boxes and reassembled in this sprawling urban
capital, situated high on a plateau in the Andes
Mountains, some 2,640 meters above sea level. It
is a breathtaking transformation in more ways
than one.
As a photographer, I work in thematic series and
groupings. It helps to synthesize the work,
fostering a discourse between images. While living
in the Netherlands, I had been working on a
landscape series for a couple of years, so I am
well versed in the ephemeral and discursive
qualities that nature offers up on a whim. The
images are graphic, disorienting and even
frightening at times. I played with both open and
impenetrable spaces. Above all, these landscapes
were flat and the flora similar and uniform.
Forest, Bogotá.
Some people travel, I move. That distinction
makes all the difference: new countries, new
languages, new climate, new food, new clothes
and new friends. Whole lives born, constructed
and filed away with yet another airplane ticket. I
am a wanderer, if not always by design, then
certainly with curiosity and soles on the ground
discovering the world about me. Perhaps I am an
explorer, seeking out special places and
unforgettable people with my lens.
I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Art History at
Columbia University in New York City. I later
continued my studies and received a Master of
Arts in Art and Design History. In time, I found
photography, or it found me. I embarked on a
program at the International Center of
Photography, where I learned to work with film
and print my own images in the darkroom.
Photography has taken me on an amazing
journey and keeps me sane as life shuttles me
around the globe.
Imagine my astonishment coming to Colombia.
Mother Nature had me from the start. These
landscapes are sublime. I feel dwarfed by their
size and stature. It is like being propelled into a
19th-century Constable or Friedrich landscape
painting of epic proportion. I was mesmerized
from the very start.
The lower ridge of the eucalyptus mountain looking down
towards Zipaquirá.
39

Bogotá is a sprawling metropolis as fierce and
urban as any in the world, and yet it has verdant
pockets of parks and gardens, purpose-built for
public use – an uncommon characteristic among
Latin American cities. I am very fortunate to live in
the center of town on the side of a mountain
which affords me an inspiring view of the urban
landscape below. The mountain is a centering
place where I go to be alone and photograph.
There is a steep forest on its slopes with
meandering foot trails. I feel as if I’ve entered an
arboretum that stretches along immeasurably.
This mountain forest is both magical and
foreboding. I feel small and powerless, and yet
somehow kept safe, within its grounds.
One of my favorite places to photograph is on a
farm north of Bogotá above the town of Zipaquirá.
The farm sits below a mountain adjacent to the
famous salt mine and cathedral. The mountain
was once a holy place for the indigenous Chibcha
tribe where they performed their most sacred
rituals. This consecrated mountain is now covered
with a forest of fragrant eucalyptus trees
stretching into the clouds as high as the eye
can see.
Below the mountain and under its protection is a
quaint and beautiful farm whose gardens are filled
with fragrant flowers, fruit trees and vegetable
gardens. The farm produces organic honey which
Victoria Regia Lily Pond with Kapok Tree, Nilo.
takes its rich fragrance from the eucalyptus forest
and the wild flowers which surround them.
Another farm I had the good fortune to visit is
located in Nilo, a 2.5 hour drive southwest of
Bogotá. Seated at just 336 meters above sea
level, the eco-system supports an entirely
different language of flora and fauna. The
proprietor at Nilo is a gifted horticulturalist and
gardener. She manages to cultivate an enormous
assortment of flora, including many varieties of
bamboo and trees such as the imposing Kapok
Tree (Ceiba Pentandra).
The farm also benefits from its many ponds and
aquatic plants, including the Victoria Regia, a
renowned water lily from the Amazon. This giant
lily with its ribbed undersurface and veined leaves
inspired Joseph Paxton’s design for the Crystal
Palace at the World Exhibition in London in 1851.
The lily was difficult to cultivate in the English
climate and when Joseph Paxton finally succeeded
in making one bloom, he was knighted by Queen
Victoria, who gave her name to the famous lily.
These uniquely Colombian landscapes are a
dialectic in shock and awe. I am humbled by their
mystery, their majesty and their sublime power. In
this land of no seasons, there is always a whisper,
a hint which reminds me of their still delicate and
ephemeral qualities.
Visual narratives give me great pleasure to create;
they help me make sense of the world around me
as I continue to explore this
extraordinary country. I
think this is probably the
beginning of a beautiful
friendship between us.
A Yarumo or Trumpet Tree (Cecropia Peltata) in a flower
garden, enveloped by mist from the sacred eucalyptus
mountain, Zipaquirá.
Anna Ljung Grüner-Hegge is a
photographer and art
historian living and working in
Bogotá, Colombia. She invites
you to follow her journey on
Instagram @annagrunerhegge
and to visit her website
www.annagrunerhegge.com
40

PROFILE FEATURE
My Garden: Stettlen, Switzerland
Judy Steinemann, of AWC Bern, shows us around her garden.
Where do you live/where is your
garden? I live in Stettlen, a small town
about 15 minutes outside of the capital
of Bern.
Judy with some of the rest of the multicultural team
(Stefan, Nataliya and Donna)
How long have you been gardening, and
what made you start? I grew up on a farm
in Kansas, so gardening was a part of my
life from the beginning. My mother was a
tomato fanatic, an illness that hit me also
later in life, but I especially enjoyed
planting and growing watermelons and
pumpkins with my Dad.
What is the size and style/type of
your garden? I have a garden on an
incline around our house, but the
garden that is especially near to
my heart is a children’s garden in our
town. Friends and I started it about six
years ago and my husband and I give
classes there. Stettlengärtli is a halfcircle
located behind the local indoor
swimming pool and among apartment
buildings. The garden is used by school
classes and a course for children from
six to eleven years of age. Each child in
the course has a garden bed that they
plant in March and take care of till the
final harvest in September. We meet
for 1 ½ hours per week during that
time. Other events are open to the
public. https://www.bioterra.ch/
angebote-engagement/gartenkind
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What do you grow in your garden?
The children grow vegetables, flowers
and herbs. They love harvesting the
potatoes. Although the zucchini are
prolific, they are not so keen on eating
them. I make a zucchini chocolate cake
for them each year and tell them what is
in it after they try it. They are usually
pleasantly surprised.
What is different about your garden
from where you previously lived? We get
much more rainfall here than in Kansas and
the kinds of insects in the garden are a bit
different than the ones I knew before.
What do you love most about your
garden? We get to share it with the
children and the others in our town.
42

PROFILE
Filling Old Doc
Bradley’s Garden
with Herbs
Francine Mihalasky, of AWA
Vienna, has always worked with
her hands. Gardening, and
especially herbs, have become a
passion.
Francine Mihalasky
I grew up in a small northern Ontario town in
Canada. I had a wonderful childhood. Although
we did have a garden for a few years, I hated
working in it. I abandoned it to spend a great
portion of our summer camping. My most
cherished memories are of my sister and me
running around in the woods, having campfires,
boating, and swimming.
geologists create presentation materials. We
finally settled in Green Bluff, WA about twelve
years ago, where we still own a home.
Leaving home
Encouraged by my love for the outdoors, I left for
college to study Geology. This is where I met my
husband. After finishing our degrees, we moved
to the States. We have been fortunate to live in
several different states around the US over the
last 20 years, including Nevada, New Jersey and
Washington State. I never became an actual
geologist. I spent most of my time helping other
Moving to Vienna
A few years ago, my husband accepted a position
at the IAEA in Vienna. We moved to Vienna, where
we will stay for five years.
Our beautiful magnolia
Early gardening
I was a horrible gardener. I have what is called a
black thumb and there are quite a few jokes at my
expense making the rounds on the Bluff. My
mother-in-law, on the other hand, was a master
gardener. She grew the most extraordinary
tomatoes. She brought the seeds from Poland
when she moved to the States in the 1940s. I was
never able to grow them in the dry Spokane
climate, but many others in New Jersey have
taken up the mantle. I, and maybe, if you are
lucky, you might be able to find a “Lemko” tomato
there if you look hard enough.
43

the pleasure of acquiring local fleeces that I’ve
cleaned, carded, and spun. I even sheared a goat
one time.
My biggest success
My biggest success will always be my herb garden
at our Green Bluff house. I started with the
obligatory flat leaf parsley and chives and my
garden grew from there. Every year I add
something new. I have sage, thyme, oregano,
tarragon, mint, etc. Some of it grows like weeds. I
was constantly pulling oregano plants everywhere.
I still have a difficult time growing other plants like
basil. I’ve also added some raspberries and
currants and I’m hopeful our renters will be
planting a couple of fruit trees this year.
Spinning
She encouraged me to start small, and she
insisted that everyone should at least have some
flat leaf parsley and chives in a pot somewhere. A
few snips of each makes every dish better. So,
that’s what I did. I started with a couple of small
containers. By the time I left New Jersey to head to
Washington, I had a rather large collection of
pots. We had all sorts of herbs, green beans and
cherry tomatoes and I even had two fig trees.
Then we moved to Green Bluff, Washington. I
finally had a yard large enough to have an actual
garden. Other than my mother-in-law, the people
in my community were a big source of inspiration,
support and information. They are an amazing
group of people with years of accumulated
agricultural knowledge.
Working with my hands
I may not have been a great gardener, but I have
always been good at working with my hands. I love
anything that has to do with textiles. I knit, spin,
weave, sew, dye, etc. I also like getting my hands
dirty. (I constantly forget to wear gloves when
dying wool). I found a way to weave gardening into
my passion for textiles. I foraged my property and
local woodlands for plants to dye wool, and just
before I left, I planted some madder, a red dye
plant. The roots should be ready to cultivate when
I get home. I do not have any animals, but I’ve had
My herb garden
The Grange
Green Bluff
Green Bluff is a wonderful community. The Green
Bluff Direct Marketing Association was founded in
1902 to protect local farmers from outside
competition. It has grown to promote Green Bluff,
as a viable and sustainable farming, education and
agri-tourism area, just north of Spokane,
Washington. The association helps member farms
thrive by increasing their farms’ exposure and
educating our community on the wonderful
experiences that you can have on Green Bluff.
(Green Bluff Growers Website). There are small
Mom & Pop farms where you can pick all sorts of
fruits and vegetables for canning, cooking and
baking. Or you can opt for a larger farming
experience like hay rides, pumpkin cannon,
cutting your own Christmas tree, farm to table
dining or having an outdoor wedding. You can also
just stop by Green Bluff to enjoy a local beer, wine,
mead or cider.
Green Bluff also has a grange, Green Bluff Grange
#300, that holds events for our community. A few
years ago, the community pulled together with
the help of a local news crew to renovate the
44

grange hall. They hold monthly events like
monthly breakfasts, BBQs, seed packet exchanges,
blue grass concerts, quilt parties and chicken poop
bingo. They also host the Horticulture Club, where
farmers come to learn more about farming issues,
and numerous community issues talks and events.
Under the Grange umbrella, there is also the Jr
Grange which organizes the yearly Green Bluff
Clean-Up, haunted house, and also talks about
seed planting.
For a couple of years, I helped the Bluff Growers
update their website. I am still a Grange member,
and I design the quarterly local community
newsletter, the Green Bluff Gazette. As part of the
Grange, a friend and I started the Green Bluff Spin
-Ins. Its goal is not only to encourage textile art in
the community, but also to bring artists and
farmers together.
came to the Bluff seeking a chance to get outside
for an outdoor experience. They spent more time
picking fruit with their families. They picked fruits
that quickly became pies, jams, and other
delicious items.
The garden in spring
When we first moved to Green Bluff, everyone
asked us where we lived and we would always
answer, “Old Doc Bradley’s House.” Green Bluff is
steeped in history and most parcels of land are
recognized by their past owners.
My favorite season
As much as I love the bounty of summer, the color
of autumn, and the calmness of winter, spring is
my favorite season. I am ecstatic every time the
crocuses pop out of the earth and by the scent of
the damp earth, the smell of the hyacinths, the
green leaves and grass, and white blossoms
against the very blue sky. Spring is the promise of
something new. One of my favorite quotes is from
Anne of Green Gables: “Isn't it nice to think that
tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
― L.M. Montgomery. That is what spring is like.
Our gardens all start fresh with so much potential.
Differences between Vienna and Green Bluff
Although Vienna is a large city and Green Bluff is
a rural town, the outdoors is an important part of
life in both places. In Vienna, I do not have a
balcony to enjoy outdoor containers (I have a
couple of plants in the apartment), but I can also
head to any park to enjoy the sun, the trees and
gardens. I can take public transportation to hike
the Vienna Woods. I just recently finished hiking
all 12 City Trails (Stadtwanderwege), and my next
goal is to hike the 120km trail that circles the city
of Vienna (Rundumadum).
Post-pandemic gardening
I hope that people have taken advantage of the
extra time spent at home to tend to a garden
(whether it’s a large outdoor garden or a small
plant in a container). The pandemic has actually
helped our farmers in Green Bluff. Many people
Autumn colors
45

FEATURE
Guayule: I’ll bet you can’t even
pronounce it!
Maggie Palu, of AW Aquitaine, has been cultivating guayule plants for
many years. Here she tells us all about it.
You may be old enough to remember the ballad
of the boll weevil. “The boll weevil is a little black
bug, come from Mexico, some folks say. Come all
the way to Texas, just looking for a place to
stay.” But I wonder whether you’ve heard about
guayule (pronounced waa YOU lay).
Guayule is a little latex-producing plant. It comes
from Mexico, some folks say. It went all the way to
Texas, and has kept right on going. It is currently
growing not only in Mexico and Texas, but also in
Arizona, France, Spain, Australia, Kenya, and
South Africa. At one point, there were guayule
fields in Morocco and Cameroon as well. When we
lived near Montpellier, we had some growing in
pots outside our front door. Now it grows in the
field behind our house here in the southwest of
France. When it’s in flower, it smells delicious, and
we even have some guayule honey from Arizona.
We haven’t yet produced any of our own but it’s
on our to-do list.
Guayule uses
Even John Steinbeck knew about guayule. It’s
mentioned in chapter 9 of The Grapes of Wrath. “…
remember in the war we planted mustard?
Remember a fella wanted us to put in that rubber
bush they call guayule? Get rich, he said.” That
was a reference to the first World War, but the US
and Canadian governments were both doing
research on guayule during World War II, and
Japanese-American internees at the Manzanar
Camp in California planted guayule and studied it
in their laboratories. In fact, guayule is much
older. In pre-Columbian times, native populations
A flower head, Lansargues, France, May 2016
Guayule in our back garden, August 2021
in Mexico used it to make rubber balls for games;
they chewed the branches to release the rubber
from cells under the bark. Guayule also has a high
resin content, which means that it burns with a
very hot flame. This came in handy for both
Mexican adobe smelters and Spanish smelters in
the colonies in the Americas, where they were
extracting silver. In the early 1900’s, the US
imported guayule as a source of natural rubber.
So it’s really no surprise that countries and
companies such as Bridgestone, Goodyear, Pirelli,
Nokian Tire and others are now starting to look
into guayule again.
Drought tolerance
Guayule is drought tolerant and can survive under
harsh conditions. It produces a natural rubber
which can be used in the manufacture of tires,
gloves, condoms and other natural rubber
products. From 2013 to 2015, Patagonia produced
wetsuits made from guayule rubber! Guayule
rubber is different from the hevea rubber
produced in the tropics because it does not
contain the latex allergen that causes reactions
and health problems in some people. The plant
itself is small and multi-branched, with small
grayish leaves; it has a striking physical
resemblance to lavender plants, when not in
flower. The tiny and fragrant yellow flowers at the
branch tips are pollinated by insects and wind.
Each flower head contains five seeds. The seeds
drop as the flower matures, unless they are
harvested to produce seedlings for further
plantations. Guayule is not an invasive plant; left
46

slightly modified because guayule is a perennial
crop and potatoes are cultivated annual
crops. This means that they might compete with
each other for nutrients and water. Also, guayule
sheds seeds to the ground below and between
rows. The fallen guayule seeds might germinate
and produce other guayule plants next to or in
the same place as the potatoes. It was therefore
decided to keep the plots separate and plant
potatoes in a different field from the guayule.
Guayule in the front garden
to their own, the seeds can fall to the ground,
where they are susceptible to competition from all
kinds of weeds.
International projects
Guayule has been domesticated and is now grown
not just by tire companies but also by small
farmers in the southwestern US and in the south
of France, with projects elsewhere in France on
the agenda. A project in the Eastern Cape in South
Africa received a FAWCO Development Grant in
2016 for women to plant guayule in a very poor
region. Currently the farm is a seed bank for
extending the surface area planted in guayule,
and a local factory is helping to harvest the plants,
mash them to extract the latex and use this latex
to produce condoms to aid in the ongoing fight
against HIV. What is left after the extraction
process is called bagasse and it can be
compressed to make bio-fuel pellets which can be
used by the women to heat their homes and also
for cooking.
Another Development Grant was awarded in 2021
to plant a food crop – potatoes – between the
rows of guayule. Because of the COVID-19
pandemic, the men who left the area to go to the
towns to work and send money home to their
families have lost their jobs, so nutrition has taken
priority over condoms. The original plan has been
Guayule in France
Here in the southwest of France, in the Aquitaine,
we have guayule growing in pots and in the
ground in front of our house as well as in a field at
the back. My husband is one of the world experts
in guayule and I am one of his staunchest
supporters. He likes to call himself the Don
Quixote of guayule, but for us, guayule is not an
impossible dream. We hope it will come into its
Maggie with her husband Serge, a.k.a the Don Quixote of
guayule!
own in our lifetime. As water becomes less and
less available for agriculture, new strategies and
plants are needed to sustain rural economies.
Guayule is a high-value crop that is drought and
heat tolerant, can grow on marginal lands (and
can even leech some nasty chemicals from the
soil, e.g. following an oil spill), and can (and we
hope, will) provide economic benefits for those
who give it a chance. It is a crop for our future.
Maggie Palu is the President of AW Aquitaine in
France and Clubs in Motion Leader for FAWCO.
We asked her to introduce her gardening self: “I
help my husband grow grapes, which I stomp to
produce a natural red wine (and I donate a bottle
to FAWCO silent auctions whenever I can). I plant
‘truffle traps’ in order to produce truffles, which I
use to prepare such delicacies as truffled
brandade Nîmoise (a variety without potatoes),
truffled butternut risotto (with butternut from
our garden), truffled scallops, truffled cream of
pumpkin soup, truffled raclette, and more than
will fit in my 100-word limit. I also observe the
annual World Naked Gardening Day.”
Fencing paid for with a Development Grant in 2021
47

PROFILE FEATURE
My Garden: Cologne, Germany
Lesley Taubert, of AIWC Cologne, shows us around her garden.
Where do you live/where is your
garden? I live in a suburb of Cologne,
Germany and my garden is a few
hundred meters away from my
apartment. It includes a small ‘”house”
with gas cooking facilities and running
water but no electricity.
How long have you been gardening, and
what made you start? I started gardening
about forty years ago and am now on my
third garden. I have always found great
pleasure in nature and flowers, especially
visiting parks and gardens.
What is the size and style/type of
your garden? My garden is 350 m² and
is one of 100 allotments on the site. As
about half the German population live
in apartments, these allotments were
introduced at the beginning of the 20th
century so that the owners could grow
their own produce; the main focus
today is having a peaceful spot to
spend leisure time.
48

What do you grow in your garden?
I have apple, cherry and plum trees along
with strawberries, raspberries,
blueberries, red and black currants,
rhubarb and a herb garden. Over the
years, I have tried growing just about
every vegetable possible, but I always
have potatoes and onions.
What is different about your garden
from where you previously lived? This
garden is different from the previous ones
because at the beginning it was completely
wild and overgrown with ivy, weeds and
brambles. Clearing it was hard work, but it
was very exciting. Flower beds and paths
were slowly discovered underneath.
What do you love most about your
garden? One big favorite is the old
magnolia tree with its dark pink buds.
But best of all is the pond with the
water lilies and all the wildlife, including
frogs, newts and dragonflies.
49

PROFILE
“The Sheer Array
of Plant Life and
Rare Species Is
Astonishing.”
Kathy Limbaugh, the FAUSA
Treasurer, started her gardening
voyage at Longwood Gardens and
Winterthur. Today she tends her
own garden while trying to fight off
the deer who just eat everything.
I was born in Rio (blame it on Rio!) de Janeiro,
Brazil because my mother was a physical
anthropologist studying the people of the Amazon
(think Jane Goodall, but with human tribes). We
moved from there to Germany and then to the
UK, so I was always working to connect with my
local “tribe”. I figured everyone was a global
nomad, so it was a real shock when I moved to
the US as a teenager and discovered that some
people never wander.
I graduated from college with degrees in
BioMedical Engineering, Chemistry and
Mathematics and like many people who are
curious and always in learning mode, I just didn’t
know what to do. So… I became a technology
Kathy Limbaugh
consultant and traveled – I worked within
government and then the oil and gas industry. A
few weeks before moving to Houston, Texas, I
met my current best friend and husband. At that
time I was commuting to London every week, but
he lured me with an offer to move to New
Zealand with his company and off we went. Two
children and four countries later, we moved back
to the US to take care of my aging parents. We
currently have a junior in High School and she
knows that once she is off to college, we may go
back to exploring the world. She is right! I live in
Chadds Ford, PA, USA.
Getting involved in gardening
I was inspired by the natural world, because of all
the rich travel experiences that I’ve had. It started
very young with the lushness of the Amazon, but
also the formal gardens of Britain when I was in
grade school. My mother and father were keen
gardeners, and they always liked to have
something that was unusual in our house like a
rubber plant or rare orchids.
Learning the skills at Longwood
When we moved to the US in 2017, we moved
right next door to Longwood Gardens and
Winterthur – two of the premiere gardens of the
world. I started working for Longwood helping
visitors and giving tours. Longwood has an
amazing training program and I learned so
much. The sheer array of plant life and rare
species is astonishing.
With my family
One of the most exciting experiences while at
Longwood was when we had the Master of
Sogetsu (a form of Ikebana) and her team come
from Japan to do a huge installation in 2019. The
world of Ikebana is both very formal and creative.
50

Things I would change about gardening today
I think that my children’s generation doesn’t have
as much appreciation for the outdoors and for the
stunning beauty around them - if they would just
look up from their phones!
An area that makes me sad is the overuse of weed
controllers – for about six years we were away
from our house and had a gardener “weed and
mulch” our garden during the spring and
summer. They applied so much poison to the
ground that even after five years of being back in
the house, the shrubs and trees are still in
recovery. What is true for us as humans (the
overuse of opioids and antibiotics) is also true for
our natural world.
Things I would like to learn
A skill I would like to learn better is creating a
natural bed of perennials that looks good through
the year – I suppose that is part of landscape
design. I am still experimenting with a couple of
hillside spots in my garden that I am not happy
with. Plus I have a million deer in my backyard
and just as I am getting anything to grow, they
come along in the middle of the night and chomp
all the leaves and buds.
Relaxing in nature
oldest and most diverse vascular plants on
earth. I also have a soft spot for ferns because my
youngest was born in New Zealand and that is
their country symbol.
Something people don’t know about me!
Not many people know that I am a certified
advanced diver – under water is a happy place for
me. I am also an amateur potter and would love
to have more time to work on that.
Gardening disaster?
My parents had a beautiful property right on the
water and they planted some bamboo to act as a
natural barrier for the prevailing wind – what a
terrible decision. That bamboo ran rampant and
effectively stilled the wind from that
direction. During the summer, the house was
stifling hot.
My favorite season
Every season in the garden is amazing – but I love
that point just after winter when the snowdrops
are pushing up from the ground like a magic trick.
And the trees have little leaf and flower buds,
ready to burst forward.
My favorite plant
If I was a plant, I might be a fern. They come up
from the ground all furled in a small ball and then
start to reveal themselves and there are so many
interesting aspects about them – they are the
In the garden
51

FEATURE
Inspiring Reads:
Jeanne: Seeds of
Infinity
Mary Bruton Sandifer, a member of AW
Aquitaine, is the author of Grapes and
Old Stones, the chronicle of her French-
American family’s adventures and
adversities developing their 5th
generation winemaking property in the
Bordeaux area of France. She was born
in Washington DC, where she earned
her university degree from The Catholic
University of America in
Literature. After a peripatetic life in
New York, London and Paris she now
lives on a hilltop above the Dordogne
River, where she works with her
husband and children making wine.
What was your inspiration for the book? There
were a few dovetailing events that thrust me into
this novel: First, after decades of caring for the
ancestral family home, the only place where our
children had roots because we had moved so
often - it was sold. We were heartbroken.
Especially my eldest daughter, who was very close
to her grandmother.
At the same time the subject of seed sovereignty
came to my attention. Communicating publicly
about officially “unrecognized” ancestral plant
remedies came under legislation (for example, the
concoction made from stinging nettles in your
back yard to treat your plants). People have been
making such remedies for hundreds of years, and
sharing them, but quietly, and suddenly those
who put such remedies in books or on line had
become outlaws. I was shocked. After bitter
fighting, the laws have eased, but it taught me
that where high profits are at stake, nothing is
actually off limits.
These diverse events led me to imagine the
consequences that a brave botanist defying such
laws would face, including the impact on their
family, especially a daughter on the cusp of
adulthood. I thought a lot about the Coming of
Age phenomenon. How we react to crisis is an
indicator of our character. But crisis can also etch
and forge character by pushing us to take a stand,
take risks, make sacrifices for what we truly
believe in. Sometimes such a crucible forces
people to make difficult inner changes, which in
turn steer them to react nobly rather than
fearfully to a great challenge. And then sometimes
these previously ordinary people become heroes,
almost against their will. That is the case with
Jeanne as she “comes of age.”
How long did it take you to write the book?
Because our wine business is demanding, I can
only write in the winter months when the tasks
ease up. In 2015 I declared a sort of “quarantine”
so I could isolate for five hours every morning to
concentrate. When you’re writing a story, the first
part is - imagining! Sitting with a notebook and
cup of tea, visualizing and hearing the progression
of your characters’ lives… Even the most innocent
interruption can steal a chapter if you haven’t
jotted it down.
That spring I gathered my family (ages 22 to 60) to
tell them the story. I needed to know from diverse
age groups and predilections if it was worth
pursuing. They asked hard questions and were
very enthusiastic, so I decided to plunge. It then
took two winters to write a first draft I felt I could
show to professionals. They pointed out things
like “this character’s motivation for that reaction
is missing” or “the pacing in these chapters needs
adjustment.” They also said they loved it and one
said she was so absorbed she missed her stop on
the train. They said, “Go!”
I am a perfectionist, so it took two more winters to
finish. A bit of valuable advice I once
received: “Before you commit to a large writing
project, be sure you really care about the
subject. It usually takes longer than you estimate,
so you need to be glad to stick with it.” In fact, I
loved my winter mornings with Jeanne so much, I
was quite sad when they ended. I miss her
company, her friends, her world.
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What kind of research do you do, and how long
do you spend researching before beginning a
book? There is a writing adage, “write about what
you know.” Most of the topics in Jeanne and the
locale are part of my life. In that sense I’ve been
researching for decades.
For example, the magic of a forest. Forests and
their effects on our psyche have been part of my
life since childhood. When I was sad or felt the
victim of an injustice, I always went to the forest
for solace. There is something eternal about the
myriad, intertwined lives there, from the aboveground
parts of trees and plants and the insect
and animal life they harbor, to the root systems
and the mycorrhizal relationships underground
that connect everything to everything. Scientists
are now exploring how plants and trees have
consciousness, something mystics have talked
about for centuries. But they vibrate at a
frequency different from ours, so it’s difficult to
tune in. Be that as it may, most of us “feel better”
after a walk in the forest. When I’m with trees I
always feel a sense of eternity; that I and my
problems are tiny but I am also part of something
very big and grand.
One of the “characters” in the story is the family
château with its generations of lives, spirits in the
stones, art work, attachment, love… This was
something we lived. Same for the farm and the
vineyard. My research was daily life over decades
of caring for an ancestral home, then adapting to
a farm life, making wine.
But the book also pushed me to research areas
that fascinated me - a healing herbal garden, for
example. I was inspired by the gardens of the
Middle Ages in monasteries and planted one here
in the hope of nourishing pollinators and making
a few curative remedies, if only of stinging nettles
and horsetail or garlic etc. for treating our fruit
trees. For more technical areas such as the
backgrounds of the botanists and healers, I did
informal study with a biologist and with a
specialist in essential oils. I now dream of having
my own alembic someday.
What is the most important thing you want
readers to take from your book? That the
natural world is our mother, our progenitor, the
source of our life, of our physical nourishment
and our psychic sustenance. It seems suicidal not
to take care of what sustains us. My story is a call
to wake up!
And for those many who are already awake, it is a
gift to remind them that whenever we allow our
minds to think higher thoughts and overcome our
anger and fear, we get closer to the frequency of
the old trees in the forest, those sentient beings
who hold eternity in their roots and boughs. And
when we feel that frequency, it is a subtle but
powerful charm that unlocks the door little by
little to bright, mysterious worlds.
When did you start writing? Very young, I made
up stories to myself and my sister when we were
upset and couldn’t fall asleep. The stories took us
to happier places where our lives were fun and
full of love and ease. Also, play acting was a big
part of our childhood. Neighborhood kids
gathered in the back yard and I told them the
story we were going to act out, assigned roles and
then we all improvised. When I think about that
now, we had no experience of “acting.” Children
are naturals at entering roles and riffing off their
playmates. We got completely lost in our story for
hours. Gosh, I wish I could go back now and
observe us.
What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?
Perhaps Et La Lumière Fut (And There Was Light) by
Jacques Lusseyran. A young boy in France with a
happy childhood is blinded in an accident. At the
age of 18 he joins the Resistance in Paris (1941)
and becomes a leader of the youth corps.
Eventually he’s imprisoned in a war camp and
survives. It’s a fascinating inside look at idealistic
youth resistance fighters who felt a freedom to
risk their lives (without spouse and children) that
their elders did not have, full of inspiring
anecdotes of courage, strength, faith and hope.
If you could tell your younger writing-self
anything, what would it be?
“Don’t put down the pen.” There is a fine line
between self-delusion and following your
dreams. Until you’re experienced enough to be
objective, don’t let anyone discourage you from
trying. Like any craft, it takes hours of practice to
find out if you have talent and hours to become
skillful. One inkling of talent is the willingness to
put in those hours, to show up, try, fail, learn, do
better, accept constructive criticism, try again. It’s
ok to not be the first to get to the finish
line. Sometimes the tortoise does ok.
I am probably a tortoise but there is enormous
pleasure and gratification to be still moving
toward my goal.
53

Short Summary of the book A distant province in
France. A miracle hidden in an ancient forest. A
young woman desperately seeking her ancestor’s
magical remedies, as an evil syndicate is hell bent on
destroying them.
Hours after Jeanne is sworn into nobility, her
family suddenly loses everything - château, power,
friends. Banned and impoverished, they move to
a decrepit farmhouse near a mysterious forest,
while Jeanne mourns her childhood dreams and
all that meant home.
Until the forest reveals secrets. When elemental
spirits propel Jeanne into her grandmother’s
resplendent realm of botany and secret medicinal
remedies, she is called to fulfill her ancestor’s
promise: protect the miracle hidden in the forest.
But she is no match for the vile, parasitic
netherworld of the enemy. Only the spirits can
gird Jeanne with essential weapons: a glimpse into
the Divine and a warrior’s mastery of herself.
Books presented in the Inspiring Reads feature are available for purchase via the FAWCO
website in the Books by Members or Books by Clubs sections. Enjoy!
54

PROFILE FEATURE
My Garden: Eppelheim, Germany
Lori Dugan, of Munich IWC, shows us around her garden.
Where do you live/where is your
garden? I live in a village south of Munich.
We have a small backyard with dicey sun
so my vegetable garden is mobile in fabric
pots which are 17 years old. Still waiting
to plant this year.
How long have you been gardening, and
what made you start? I gardened years
ago in Florida. It was hard. We moved to a
house here. I love tomatoes, tomatillos,
summer squash and kale so I thought I’d
try it out. I wanted to make salsa and grow
big juicy tomatoes like when I was a kid.
Before the storm
What do you grow in your garden?
I started out with tomatoes, tomatillos,
summer squash, kale, arugula, beets,
carrots. What survived the horrible
storms and bad weather, let’s just say
the harvest was sad! After the first hail
storm I cried buckets. An extremely
challenging season.
After the storm
55

What is different about your garden
from where you previously lived? My
garden in Florida was hard because of the
heat and bugs eating everything. It was a
raised bed too. Here the snails ate
everything two years ago. The season is
short here, the weather unpredictable. Last
year a five-minute hail storm about wiped
everything out.
Snails are a huge problem here. So I used
fabric pots and put copper tape around
them, which worked. I moved them daily
from our front driveway to the backyard in
the afternoon. Yes they were very heavy!
What do you love most about your
garden? I LOVE the energy my plants
give off and the unconditional love I
feel for them and from them. I love to
talk to them and hug them. It was hard
to see them crushed but to see them
rally back was rewarding! I love their
smell too!
56

PROFILE
From Florist to
Flower Rescuer
Kati Mayfield, member of AWC
Finland, now runs a non-profit
that focuses on floral waste.
Kati Mayfield
I grew up in a suburb of Denver, CO, in a very
outdoorsy and travel-loving family. My sister and I
were lucky to have parents who took us skiing on
the weekends (starting at age two - imagine the
tantrums they had to tolerate!), and made sure
that we traveled to an interesting and out-of-thebox
place every summer. They knew that they
were raising us with a lot of privilege and wanted
us to see what it meant to live outside that
bubble. They were also hippies (recovering) and
biology nerds (lifelong and proudly so) and so
gave us a lot of time in nature, teaching us to
marvel at natural phenomena great and small.
Leaving home
When I first left home I attended university in
nearby Boulder, Colorado. I studied abroad in
Argentina during my sophomore year, and then
got the craving to live in Latin America. After
Camping as kids
graduation, I spent about eight months doing so,
first back to Argentina, and then to Honduras and
Chile to do a fellowship with Kiva.org (the
microlending platform) with two of their field
partners. After that I moved back to the US, to
Oregon, where I spent two years in AmeriCorps
(kind of like the Peace Corps, but serving
domestically), to work with a grassroots NGO
called Adelante Mujeres.
During those years I learned about community
organizing, microenterprise and volunteer
coordination; I also learned that I LOVED living in
Oregon because roses bloom year-round and you
can also ski year-round! After my AmeriCorps
term, I went to work managing volunteers and
creating youth programs for a mountaineering
education organization called Mazamas, a job I
worked in and loved for four years until I got a
craving to go back to school and my boyfriend
and I decided to move to Finland.
Moving to Helsinki
We were curious about Finland because my
boyfriend, Aleksi, has a lot of family in Finland,
and because Finnish universities were still
offering tuition-free spaces to foreign students. So
I applied to a master's program at Aalto University
in Helsinki. We thought we would just stay for two
years while I studied, but here we are still, more
than five years later. I studied entrepreneurship
and wrote my master's thesis on the global supply
chain for cut flowers, reviving an interest which
began when I worked for a flower shop in
Colorado. During that job I had decided that I
wasn't cut out to be a real florist (it's damn hard
work!) and my connection to flowers had lapsed,
but as I studied the supply chain I realized that
there were many ways to be involved in the floral
industry, not just as a florist. I also became aware
57

of the myriad ethical and environmental problems
in the industry and decided to focus my attention
there. I started working for a flower wholesaler in
Helsinki and saw some of the industry's
sustainability challenges first-hand. I became very
focused on the issue of floral waste, as one of my
jobs at the wholesaler was to throw away the bulk
flower packages they couldn't sell (because of age
or damage). This was the origin of FloweRescue,
the organization I now run.
FloweRescue is a volunteer-run nonprofit with the
mission to address and spark dialogue about
waste and other sustainability issues in the floral
industry, and to connect people through the
beauty and joy of flowers. We collect waste/
surplus flowers from wholesalers, retailers and
events. Then we sort the flowers and redistribute
them either as bouquets which we donate to elder
care homes and charities, or as materials for
design/art projects.
My love of gardening
Many of life's adages come from the garden …
good things take time; incredible bounty can come
from humble beginnings; and sometimes you
need to get dirty to create something good. As I
navigate the beauty and quandaries of adulthood I
find a lot of wisdom in growing things. And one of
our wonderful FloweRescue volunteers pointed
out that our work also mirrors a garden,
cultivating community and planting the seeds of
the future we want to see for the floral industry.
Though part of me cringes at how clichéd this
sounds, it's also apropos - in creating a
community, we till soil together, we plant seeds,
we hope they will grow and nourish them with our
shared intentions. Then we celebrate and give
thanks when our efforts bear fruit.
First steps into gardening
My earliest garden memory is stealing cherry
tomatoes off the vine while I was supposed to be
watering them. Early on I only saw my family’s
garden as a chore, or the source for a
surreptitious snack before dinner. I became
interested in gardening when we lived in Oregon,
where I met and worked with many farmers and
farm-working families and began to understand
the complex web of our agrifood system. Aleksi
With FloweRescue volunteers
With family in 2021
built a small raised bed in the yard of our rented
house; we planted tomatoes, basil and greens and
had spectacular results. I ate garden-grown
spinach and basil in my omelets every morning
during the summers we lived in that house. Now
that we live in a city apartment in Helsinki, I dearly
miss those fresh vegetables and my early
mornings watering the garden. Though we don't
have a garden of our own here, I am amazed by
how much you can actually grow in Finland in the
summer. Aleksi's mom has a cottage in a
community garden here, and I marvel each season
at how much that small garden produces. I guess
there's something to be said for 19-hour days at
the height of the growing season!
Learning the trade!
My very limited garden knowledge is all from selfstudy
and emulating Aleksi - who, unlike me,
actually paid attention to what his mom was doing
in the garden when he was a kid. My floral design
training is thanks to a lot of trial-and-error, and an
incredible mentor named Kristina. I first sought
out cut flowers in 2007 after someone very
important to me had passed away and I was
struggling with my first real experience of grief.
Three weeks after their death, a friend sent a
bouquet of flowers and when that bouquet
appeared on my doorstep I felt a jolt of joy. That
incredible emotion, which had always come
naturally to me before, had disappeared for the
previous few weeks. In feeling it again, I became
obsessed. I thought, "I want to feel this, and I want
to share this feeling." So I approached every
flower shop in my college town and begged them
58

Sorting out rescue flowers
59

for a job, promising to clean their toilets, sweep
their floors, drive their deliveries … anything to be
near the flowers. Eventually I met a woman
named Kristina who, upon hearing my sob story,
took me in her arms and promised to teach me as
much as she could.
Challenges in the cut flower industry
I am sad because today there is no such thing as a
sustainable commercially grown flower. And I
would argue that, because many of the flowers we
plant in our gardens are non-native, highly
modified varieties, there aren't many truly
sustainable garden flowers either. Most of the
flowers grown today deplete the environment that
grows them, rather than rejuvenating it. Most of
the flowers grown today compete with wild
ecosystems and food crops for scarce space,
nutrients and water resources. Most of the flowers
grown today require intensive 'cides to ensure
that they grow pest-free and suitable for longdistance
shipping. Many of the flowers grown
today demand long hours in harsh conditions for
the people who tend them, without suitable
compensation. Many of the flowers grown today
travel immense distances from farm to shop to
table. And up to 40% of what's produced by the
commercial flower industry will go to waste before
reaching the hands of consumers. Most of the
flowers which do make it to us are wrapped and
adorned with a lot of single-use plastics. Many of
us demand flowers out-of-season for our region.
And then, once they show the smallest sign of age,
we dump them. Need I go on?
With Aleksi in the woods in Finland
Pandemic changes
If prices (both rental and purchase) for houses
with small plots of land are any indication, the
pandemic has increased the popularity of outdoor
space and, I would reason, gardens here in
Finland. Finns have a strong tradition of keeping a
"mökki" or countryside cottage to which they
retreat in the summer, and I read that mökki sales
skyrocketed during the pandemic as people
sought refuge away from their tiny box
apartments. But it seems that people are
increasingly interested in taking up gardening
even near the urban centers now.
60

THANK YOU 2022 FAWCO INTERIM MEETING SPONSORS!
FAWCO was pleased to have five sponsors at the Interim Meeting in Luxembourg this year. Their support
allows FAWCO to continue to serve its members throughout the year and is invaluable to our event. To learn
more about their products and services please visit their websites.
61

INSPIRING YOU
Founded in 1931, FAWCO is a global women’s NGO (non-governmental organization), an
international network of independent volunteer clubs and associations comprising 58
member clubs in 31 countries on six continents. FAWCO serves as a resource and a voice for
its members; seeks to improve the lives of women and girls worldwide, especially in the areas
of human rights, health, education and the environment; advocates for the rights of US
citizens overseas; and contributes to the global community through its Global Issues Teams
and The FAWCO Foundation, which provides development grants and education awards.
Since 1997, FAWCO has held special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social
Council.
OUR MISSION STATEMENT
FAWCO is an international federation of independent organizations whose mission is:
• to build strong support networks for its American and international membership;
• to improve the lives of women and girls worldwide;
• to advocate for the rights of US citizens overseas; and
• to mobilize the skills of its membership in support of global initiatives for
education, the environment, health and human rights.
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should only take a few minutes of your time to complete and will be a great help to us!
Please click on the link or paste it into your browser
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Copyright 2022 FAWCO
Inspiring Women© Magazine is owned and published electronically by FAWCO.
All rights reserved. All bylined articles are copyright of their respective authors as indicated herein and are
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62

MORE ABOUT THIS ISSUE
The Inspiring Women Team
Liz Elsie Karen Berit Michele Haley
For more information about this magazine, please contact a member of the Inspiring
Women team:
Editor in Chief, Liz MacNiven, inspiringwomen.editor@fawco.org
Advertising and Sponsorship Manager, Elsie Bose, advertising@fawco.org
Distribution Manager, Karen Boeker, iwdistribution@fawco.org
Social Media Manager, Berit Torkildsen, iwsocialmedia@fawco.org
Features Coordinator, Michele Hendrikse Du Bois, inspiringwomenfeatures@fawco.org
Profiles Coordinator, Haley Green, inspiringwomenprofiles@fawco.org
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to our profilees: Amanda, Francine, Ida, Judy, Kathy, Kati, Kit, Lesley, Lori, Margaret,
Rebekka, Sandra and Sharon, with thanks also for the use of their photos and those of their
friends and families. Additional thanks to Anna, Karen, Liz, Maggie, Mary A and Mary BS for
their work on the articles.
The cover photo is of Amanda Kreuder-Carrington and was taken by her daughter Lilly in a
tulip field in Holland. Amanda was born in London but has been living in Düsseldorf,
Germany since 1992. She met her German husband in London when he was working there.
Amanda is an avid gardener but was trained as a buyer and works as a personal stylist.
Special thanks to the proofreading team of Laurie Brooks (AWC Amsterdam/ AWC The Hague
and FAUSA) Sallie Chaballier (AAWE Paris), Janet Davis (AIWC Cologne), Kit Desjacques (AAWE
Paris), Mary Dobrian (AIWC Cologne), Carol-Lyn McKelvey (AIWC Cologne/FAUSA), Janis Kaas
(AAWE Paris and FAUSA) ( Lauren Mescon (AWC Amsterdam), Mary Stewart Burgher (AWC
Denmark), and Jenny Taylor (AIWC Cologne and Düsseldorf).
Please note: images used in this publication are either sourced from the authors themselves or
through canva.com.
We would like you to post the link for this issue of
Inspiring Women, Women and Gardening, in your club
publications until Women and Youth: Inspiring Future
Generations is published on September 15, 2022.
63

Coming in September 2022
“Women and Youth:
Inspiring the Future
Generation”
However we leave this world, it will be the responsibility of our
children and grandchildren to pick up the reins and set it on the right
course. We will highlight women who are working specifically with
youth to prepare them for the future. Do you know a member who is
working with young people in the community, in schools, on a global
issue project, in arts or sports? How are these members making a difference? We want to share
features about interesting youth programs or projects in your community. And we would like to
share photos that tell these stories.
To nominate candidates for profiles, please send the candidate’s
name, candidate’s email address and a brief description (50-100
words) of why you think they are inspiring and fit the theme for the
issue. Send the information to inspiringwomenprofiles@fawco.org
To submit a feature: To complement the profiles, we are looking
for women to write feature articles around the theme of women
inspiring youth and youth themselves. This is a broad theme; let us
know what you would like to write about. Our features are 700-800
words plus photos. Contact Michele at inspiringwomenfeatures@fawco.org
Photographs are integral to our magazine. We end each issue with a page of a photograph that
offers a unique perspective on its theme. The photo can be provocative, amusing, entertaining and/or
artistic. The photo should lend itself to a portrait orientation and be able to fit an A4 page. To submit a
photo that you think says “That’s Inspired!” for this issue please contact
inspiringwomen.editor@fawco.org
THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING NOMINEES, FEATURES AND
PHOTOS IS MAY 31 ST .
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Making rescue
bouquets to donate!
Kati Mayfield,
founder of
FloweRescue, spent
time during the
pandemic making
bouquets for those
in need.
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