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Landis Portraits: Diane Santus, continued

3/12/2014

2 Comments

 
Her gardens include both perennial and vegetable beds – and more than fifty house plants. She feels fortunate to have the Schoharie Valley’s legendary fertile soil:  she said she’s never had to use fertilizer.  Gardening, to her, is “flow,” internalized to become second nature – “like [practicing] scales on the piano.”  “It’s challenge, [but] not work,” she insisted,” just pleasure, always restful, even weeding.  But never a chore.”  

These days, her genealogical research brings her as much pleasure as her gardens.  “It’s addictive, like a drug,” she said. “It’s solving mysteries all the time.”  Diane has traced her family in this country back to the 1600s.  She’s discovered that Benjamin Franklin’s mother’s sister and the Colonial American clergyman Cotton Mather are both related to her family.  Some of her more immediate family settled in the Middleburgh area, and in 1987, Diane re-settled there too.

Unfortunately, her home was devastated by the massive flooding in 2011. Although Diane rebuilt, the memories of that ordeal still haunt her.  

Volunteering at the Arboretum brings her some peace of mind.  Diane has been a stalwart volunteer at Landis’ spring and fall plant sales.  As one of the Arboretum’s designated plant experts, she has enjoyed sharing her knowledge with others, especially young people who are just beginning to garden.  

The Arboretum has been a place for her to continue to learn.  She’s encountered plants she’s never heard of before.  Touring the Ed Miller Native Plant Trail, she said, “blew me away.”  The Arboretum, she noted, is “expanding all the time:  new trails, new events, always something new at the plant sales.”

“Roots” – genealogical and botanical – seem to have brought Diane to the Arboretum.  And she’s here to stay.
2 Comments
Marian Hotopp
3/21/2014 05:25:34 am

Bravo!
We need to talk about your time in Japan sometime.
We saw some unique farming there.
M

Reply
Diane Santus
3/23/2014 06:05:22 am

see you guys Thurs @ mtg!!

Reply



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