My name is Jane, I grew up in a 19th century farmhouse with a big red barn, helping my mother, Mary Josephine, with her vegetable and flower gardens. I have many October memories of going out into the dark backyard to help cover her gardens with sheets when an early frost threatened. She taught me how to grow just about anything, how to cook, bake, make jam, how to sew, make Christmas wreaths, beachcomb, do everything on a budget, and find enjoyment in the work of the everyday.

Herbs and flowers have long been a source of cheer, peace, inspiration and solace for me. From my mother-in-law Ducky, gardener and seeker of wildflowers, I learned how much the migrating birds and butterflies rely on healthy ecosystems for food, shelter and rest, and it is sadly now very clear that our bees and beneficial insects need as much support, pollen and nectar as they can get. Ducky left a legacy of flowering gardens, including many milkweed plants which are still sustaining monarch butterflies on their thousands of miles yearly migration.

I have lived in Duxbury for over 30 years, with our beautiful and growing family, and it is my hope that my small contribution of growing flowers both to leave in nature, and for harvesting, will benefit all of the species on our ever more endangered planet, and that in doing so will be a source of haven and sustenance to the small creatures, and of pleasure to us who enjoy nature’s flora and who see that the “Earth laughs in flowers”. *

(*Hamatreya, by Ralph Waldo Emerson)