Jeanne Kane says she doesn’t really have a theme for her small garden in Neptune Beach, where she and husband Terry have lived for 16 years. But if she had to sum it up, she’d say it was diversified and recycled.

“My husband does the construction work and I do the flowers,” she says. “He’s a helper who follows instructions quite nicely.”

Terry Kane is a tankerman for Olympic Tug and Barge. “He’s the fellow who puts the fuel on and off the barges and the oil tankers,” Kane explains. “I’m a homemaker and mother of six grown sons.”

She talked to The Herald recently about her adventures in the garden:
Garden description: The lot is only 50 feet wide by 100 feet long. The house takes up most of it. I try to have a color theme, but it never works out because I keep seeing a plant I love, and I have to have one. I try to stuff vegetables in everywhere I can in the summer. I container-plant with annuals and some perennials across the water side because the majority of plants don’t care for salt-water spray.

In the wintertime, I move them to the back of the house away from the salt spray. The saltwater side is my desert side, but along the south side of the house, it’s like a rainforest all planted in hostas and trees. My fish pond and my greenhouse are on the street side.
The fish pond is a waterfall coming out of a rock wall. We had it at the side of the house, but moved it to the street side this year because it was sometimes flooded by seawater in the winter.

My greenhouse is so cute. My son is a builder. He was remodeling a Victorian house, and he gave me all these little antique, paned windows. In the meantime, a friend was remodeling his deck, and he offered to give us his safety-glass panels. My husband got four driftwood logs and made the corners of the greenhouse, and with extra materials, he built my greenhouse. It’s about 75 percent recycled materials. All of our raised beds are built with driftwood, as are the arbor over the deck, the deck supports and the carport. We used logs that came up into our yard in a bad storm a few years ago.

Recognition: Last year I won first place in Whatcom County in Bloom for entire garden, ½-acre or less, and for best small garden.

Time in the garden: Spring through fall, three to four hours a day.
Gardening start: I started in 1968 building a huge vegetable garden in a former home.
Why: My mother and father both gardened. I wanted the vegetables. I was raising small children and thought it was a good experience for them. And it was. My big grownup boys all have gardens.

Favorite garden moment: Every day I’m out there is my favorite moment.
Favorite tool: Felco pruner.
Least favorite gardening chore: Raking anything or shoveling anything.
Helpful book: “Sunset Western Garden Book.”
Tip: Talk to your plants.
Pest control: Because of being close to the salt water, I don’t need much but some slug control using Deadline. I feed the birds year-round, so they take care of most of the bugs.
Plant food: Osmocote in all my containers, and Miracle-Gro for the rest.

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