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Episode details

World Service,11 May 2026,26 mins

Falling in love with flowers

The Conversation

Available for over a year

Datshiane Navanayagam meets the women behind leading nurseries and flower farms in Germany and America. From a vase of cut roses to the perennials that brighten our gardens, these women cultivate beauty from bare earth. Danielle Dall’Armi transformed a derelict lemon and avocado farm in California into a rose farm with an international reputation. A self-taught horticulturalist, she now has 25,000 rose plants and supplies high-end customers. Anja Maubach runs the nursery founded by her great-grandfather, renowned botanist Georg Abends, specialising in perennials. She is also an expert on the great female horticulturalists of the past, such as Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West. Producer: Hannah Sander (Image: (L) Anja Maubach, credit Daniel Welschenbach. (R) Danielle Dall'Armi, credit Victoria Pearson.)

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