By LYN DESMARAIS
FORESTDALE—Jane Aines has lived in Forestdale her whole life. She has been gardening since the late 70s and at her current home since 1983. Her gardens are spectacular, real showstoppers. I’m not sure these pictures will do them justice. I was nervous about just stopping at a stranger’s garden. Jane was so nice and welcoming; I shouldn’t have worried. Here’s Jane:
“My mother-in-law was actually the person who got me started in gardening. She got me planting annuals. I grew petunias, impatiens, geraniums, marigolds, begonias, and salvia. My sister-in-law was working at First Seasons Greenhouse in Clarendon and asked me why I didn’t do a perennial garden. I said because the flowers don’t last all summer. She urged me to try perennials. My husband had a huge vegetable garden at that time. I decided to try and grow some perennials. So, I took a very small patch out of the front of our vegetable garden, and I grew primroses, yarrow, iris, delphinium, and Dahlias. They turned out to be very pretty. I decided to make that garden a little bigger the following year. So that winter I bought lots of books on perennials and I spent the winter reading and looking at the pictures of the plants I really liked and when they bloomed. Then I started to go to Pinewood Gardens on Route 7. Tom Sabatini had the best perennials around. I bought all my perennials from him. I bought what I liked. My gardens grew exponentially from there. I have had gardens and shrubs everywhere on my property.
I love a kaleidoscope of color. I do love white, especially putting it next to other colors. White really makes other flower colors pop. I spread feverfew and white Asiatic lilies everywhere. I decide what goes where by height. When I’m planting, I put the smallest in front, tallest behind, and then reverse that if it’s an island garden. My favorite plants are my pink iris and my purples, and my daylilies. My absolute favorite daylily is Beautiful Edgings. Jan Sherman, my boss at the Brandon Training School, got me started on daylilies. I adore daylilies. I deadhead them every morning. I get to be out there seeing the day’s blooms and the next day’s coming. Do your readers know that each flower on a daylily lasts only a single day? But it doesn’t matter because each plant has so many blooms, they just keep blooming.
The best thing about gardening is just being out there and seeing the garden go from bare ground in the winter to the most beautiful garden of color in the summer. It’s unbelievable! One of the most challenging things about my gardens is that my plants spread so quickly. I hate to throw anything away, so I just keep digging up my extras and adding more gardens. Although I only have perennials in the gardens, I do have lots of annuals in the ground, in window boxes and as hanging plants. I have shrubs around the house. I have oriental lilies in my garden but other than that I don’t plant a lot of bulbs.
I do everything myself in my garden. I plant and weed, mulch and move plants, anything and everything that has to do with the garden, I’m the one. I’m very fussy so I like to do things myself. And I also ask myself, ‘what’s the point of having a garden if you don’t do the work yourself?’ My husband helps me, of course. He edges the gardens, sets up watering systems, and digs out the sod for new beds. And he helps me mulch and cut back in the fall. We’re getting older, so I have finally decided to cut back on some of the gardens because it’s getting to be too much. It’s great when you’re young but I’m older now, so I’m cutting back. I will always have gardens, because I truly love them and they’re very relaxing to work in, just not so many.
When I started gardening, I didn’t have a particular garden in mind. I didn’t have a clue as to what to do. But I read books and I looked at plenty of photos and I went on garden tours. I visited the Boston Garden Show and the Flower Show in Burlington. That’s where I got the idea for a water garden. My husband built the whole pond with a filtration system, and I filled it in with shrubs and flowers. We put in the first small water garden in 1992 and made it bigger in 1996. We bought koi fish and some goldfish. They’ve multiplied over the years and we’ve given many away. The fish garden is the one most loved by visitors. I love spending my time in my garden. Nothing else matters when I’m working there. I so enjoy having people stop and admire them. I love giving tours, meeting new people, sharing my garden stories, and helping people start their own gardens.
Jane’s advice for beginners:
- Start small.
- Plant daylilies and irises because they are so hard to kill. Plant rose mallow and phlox, too, as they spread.
