GARDENING with love

Marjorie found a way to help others with her passion for gardens

- SAMANTHA IRELAND

As I paid for some plants at my local nursery, I spotted a  yer on the counter.

Volunteer gardeners needed, it read.

It was for an organisation called Easy Care Gardening Inc, who are part of the Commonwealth Home Support program.

They were looking for volunteers to go to the homes of elderly people in nearby suburbs and help maintain their yards.

The aim was to make it easier for them to stay in their own homes.

I’d love to do something like that, I thought.

Then aged 43, and a keen gardener, I was working full-time as a medical scientist at the Royal North Shore Hospital, NSW. But I had Saturdays free, so I signed up as a volunteer.

That was 29 years ago.