PARKS AND REC. -the garden of Jim and Christine May -by B.Lee

I imagine myself a great gardener and regularly try to make my own little “luschious garden” as Jack Black would say, but some people don’t have to imagine… Jim and Christine May are seasoned gardening vets with a magazine worthy decorative garden and great edibles and herbs to boot.

Their back yard was a sloping hill with not much going on until the couple decided to call on friends to get free fill to help create a useable blank slate for their obvious passion for plants.

“A hundred and fifty truckloads” later (woosh! I hope that was a joke!) the spot was flat and they began to fill it with all kinds of beautiful and interesting plants.  Christine’s family is also very into plants and over the years they have traded all kinds of clippings with each other helping save money and broaden the types of plants they can grow.

Another thing that immediately became evident is that they are big time collectors of interesting objects. The couple has sold their collections at the Litchfield Pickers market and they are both energetic and positive about the community.   Jim is a key member in the Hillsboro Historical Society as well as Imagine Hillsboro and other groups.

Looking around their garden it seemed to have a lot of little stories to offer, a decorative metal door header salvaged from a work site, a mill stone saved from the dump (the stone was at one time in use at the old Cress Mill on the outside of town) and even a “Spoon Graveyard”.

 

Luckily, I had my sidekick on the job to make sure all the edibles were super tasty; tomatoes, blackberries, herbs and other little things and we sampled a few.. Man, garden tomatoes are the best..

The moonflower plant has big white flowers that open up at night and close as the sun comes out! (they got a seed pod of this rare plant from a friend)

Jim works for the Hillsboro Parks, Lakes, and Recreation and can be seen smiling around town.  It was really cool to see someone who works for the city and is so passionate for our town and for what he does. Jim and his wife invited me to come back in the spring for some plants cutoffs to plant in my garden… I’ll be back.