Joan Burton-Jones      Connections                                                            

I come from a long line of entrepreneurial women.  My great-grandmother wrote letters for working people who could not write for themselves but wanted to maintain links to their families back home; her story is recorded in the Australian, Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach. My grandmother wrote legal briefs for my grandfather, a busy barrister.  She later set up a small chocolate factory in Sydney and my mother founded the first chocolate factory in Queensland.

 

I was born in Australia, spent my early years in Japan and once I had finished my education set out for Europe where I based myself in London.  I ran my own business in England designing and making cloisonné enamel jewellery, which was sold in Harrods and other leading stores.  I subsequently lived and worked in many countries from the UK to the West Indies and travelled extensively in Europe and North America.  

 

I later started a plant propagation business in Queensland, Australia growing native and exotic plants to order and exporting them to the UK, Holland and Japan. I was delighted to be chosen as one of the two suppliers of plants from Australia for the first ‘Australian Garden’ at the Chelsea Flower Show in May 1994 in London, where the Australian Garden won a silver medal. To provide mother stock plants for the propagation nursery, I designed a garden that we later opened to the public as part of Australia’s Open Garden Scheme, with the proceeds going to charitable and environmental causes. I also set up a garden club and assisted others with designs for their gardens, including a design for the visually impaired.

 

As well as exploring the physical world I enjoy exploring the world of ideas – both the sciences and the arts – and the way  that ideas from different disciplines often intersect and overlap. I also enjoy writing and communicating on different subjects and in different ways, from Ecology to Business and through Storytelling, Artists’ Books and Children’s Books.

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I spend a few months each year on the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain, a beautiful part of the world which I and my husband love to explore- see below some images of the area around where we live :

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Contact

Email: joan@burton-jones.com