Colour comes into couple’s lives

By Peter Sweeney
Life hasn’t quite been the same at Gembrook’s Greenvalley Flora farm since Ginger Meggs lost his.
And neither have Gesue (Ges) or Lucia (Lucy) Scalora, the recent passing of their 18-year-old moggy putting the Scaloras at a loose end.
The couple were married for 50 years in July, but there wasn’t much to celebrate.
“He (Ginger Meggs) was always at our feet at home; when we were out on flower deliveries, he was always at the door waiting for our return,” Lucia recalled.
“Now he’s buried in our backyard.”
Even the award-winning gerberas appear to mourn the loss of Ginger Meggs, seeming to have their heads bowed lower and for longer than normal.
After all, when it was cold – as it often gets in the hills – the cat would find his way into the warmth of the igloos, sleep and purr.
However, as they say in the classics, the show must go on.
And for the Scaloras, the rural show started on their present property in 1967. They had earlier worked land on a nearby property in Mountain Road which was owned by Lucia’s parents, Maria and Salvatore.
“My mum came to Australia in 1936 and dad came here in 1938,” Lucia said.
Lucia, 66, has always been a “Gembrook girl”, while Gesue, 71, was from Sicily, or, as he prefers to say, Sicilia.
He was brought to Australia by his dad, who had been a prisoner of war here during World War II, on a boat in 1954.
“My grandfather came to Australia in 1927 and he settled at Kooweerup,” Gesue said.
Soon after arriving in Australia, Gesue found his way into the hills around Gembrook – and met his future wife in, of all places, a potato patch.
Lucia’s family had farmed spuds for three generations.
“Potatoes was what my parents (Maria and Salvatore) loved,” Lucia said. And it was what the newlyweds also got into.
However, life took on a rude shock – and an abrupt U-turn – for the Scaloras on 22 October 1996, around the time they started to develop a love of gerberas on their “three and a half something” hectare block of dirt in Beenak East Road. Gesue had a serious tractor accident on the property.
After being trapped under the machine, Gesue spent three weeks in The Alfred hospital and three months in rehabilitation.
Sporting broken bones and a badly bruised body, he was told he wouldn’t be able to lift heavy weights and wouldn’t work again.
That prognosis, combined with poor prices for spuds, meant an “exit” from the potato game.
So the Scaloras switched permanently to gerberas, which not only provided more colour to life, but rehabilitation.
Now there are wholesale nurseries – and down the track the flower-buying public – which are thankful for such, especially when the season turns to spring.
That’s not only the “flower power” period – but when the gerberas are at their best.
“They are such a happy flower,” Lucia said.
“They love the sun, and spin around following it.”
And it seems gerberas aren’t the only things that can grow under the igloos at the Scalora property.
For the past year and a bit, a giant pineapple has taken pride of place in the nursery.
The 1.5m tall plant has produced two quality pineapples. “The first one was a bit small, but the second was full of colour and weighed about one kilogram,” Lucia said.
The pineapple is fed – and looked after – the same as the gerberas so it receives water via drip and fertilisers.
The idea of growing a pineapple in the igloo started when Lucia took the top off a supermarket bought pineapple and put it in water. It was planted when the roots were grown.
It took a couple of years to mature and then the flowers started. The rest is history. It seems a combination of the rich soil in the hills – but probably more so the silky skills of Lucia and Gesue – can make anything grow.
And the friendly couple are going to “keep growing” for as long as their health holds out.
“We’ve got nothing else to do … and we love this life. We’ll keep doing things by trial and error,” Gesue said.
“We think we work pretty hard, and if lazy workers die first, then we will live a while.
“As long as we can make enough money to stay off the pension, then that’s what we will do.”