Until a few years ago, she was like any other woman of her times; a loving wife and a caring mother. Like many of us, flowers have always fascinated her. But what makes her unique is her incredible resourcefulness to also make her love for flowers a lucrative business.

Meet Sabira Muhammed Moosa of Pearl Gardens, from Thrissur district in Kerala, who grew from an ordinary house wife to a successful, award-winning floriculturist through grit and guts.

For her, it is a hobby turned into a living. "I started off with the cultivation of jasmine in our 84 cents of land, about 12 years ago. They grew very well and fetched good returns", says Sabira. But nipping them daily in the early morning and selling in the market was practically difficult for her, as she had to take care of her school-going kids.

But this practical difficulty did not deter her love for these natural show-stealers. From the year 2000 onwards, her 'Pearl Gardens' began to be more vivid, vibrant and variegated, as the most exquisite genres among the flora--orchid, anthurium and euphorbia started finding a place in her nursery.

"As cultivation of jasmine required much care and attention, I switched to orchids ten years ago. It started as a hobby, but within a few years,the number of varieties in the garden crossed 250. We used to import these varieties directly from Thailand", explains . Sabira.

Now Sabira has more than 250 varieties of orchids in her paradise, including many rare varieties. Grammatophyllum, Cattleya, Arachnis, Vanda, Phalaenopsis, Dendrobium, Cympidium etc are a few to mention. The large array of anthuriums include those popular in the flower market, like Tropical Red, Midori Green,Avalon, Caesar, Mauritium Orange, Angel White, Esmeralda, Cascade White, Ivory, Jewel, Aymara, and other varieties.

Now Sabira has around 10,000 plants in her garden and more than half of them are yielding. According to Sabira, marketing of flowers is not a problem.

"Earlier we used to send flowers to Delhi. But now, things have changed and there is huge demand for these flowers in the local market itself" Sabira adds. "Plucking is done weekly or once in two weeks, as per market requirement" she says.

Besides this, there is a good market for planting materials of these ornamental plants. "Depending on their genus or variety, they will get you anything between 50 to 3,000 rupees," says Sabira.

Needless to say, she has found recognition from the government for her hard-work in the form of the coveted 'Udhyanashreshta' award for the year 2007-08, given annually by the Kerala government for the best floriculture farmer. "After that, they haven't given that award to anybody as the screening committee was not satisfied with any of the nominations", says a beaming Sabira.

Sabira's husband, Muhammed Moosa, a Gulf returnee, is also bitten by the orchid bug. She attributes her success to the support given by her husband and children, Shibin, Bibin and Irfana Parveen.

Sabira has also been able to provide jobs to three people. "Monthly expenses will be roughly around Rs.15,000 rupees, including labour cost, cost of organic and chemical fertilizers. I make minimum profit of Rs 30,000 every month," she reveals.

And what next? Well, Sabira is planning to expand her garden by extending the cultivation to the remaining areas of land in her holding. "I am also planning to grow some different varieties of cut flowers" she adds

By Riyas Aboobacker