A love affair with gardening has kept a spring in the step of 94-year-old Edna "Eddie" Taylor.
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Each day she carefully descends the tower of stairs at the high-set Bundaberg Queenslander, her family home for 64 years, to attend her collection of plants.
"I don't want to be sitting in the house all day," she said.
"Gardening gets me outside, and I'm also a keen bird watcher, I have quite a few books on birds."
Her fern and orchid house is a delight of cool green, but five years ago Ms Taylor discovered the desert rose and has been collecting them since.
Not related to the traditional rose, the plant is a slow growing succulent, that stores water in its truck and closely resembles a miniature bottle tree, more than a typical succulent.
Surrounded by a bountiful bloom of her latest obsession, Ms Taylor couldn't be happier.
"I find a lot of the old style plants are coming back in fashion," she said.
"I have around 60 of these desert roses I have collected, they have such a beautiful flower when they all bloom.
"But I'm on the hunt for a real dark red one, almost black, I'd love that one."
The keen gardener grew up on a sheep property near Coonamble, New South Wales.
After meeting her late husband Giles Taylor, they packed up and moved to Bundaberg, where he worked as a cane cutter, before becoming assistant manager at prefabricated home manufacturer, Petersen Bros.
The couple raised their three children in the home and now Ms Taylor gives her love to her plants, including her desert roses.
"They just need the right soil and fertiliser, but don't over water them or they will rot," Ms Taylor said.
"I give them a good cut back once they flower and that's about it.
"I have seen photos of them planted in the ground at Argentina and they grow quite large with a huge bulb at the base."
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