SHREWSBURY, Mass. — AnneMarie Cairns believes that gardening is much more than an independent activity. As president of the Shrewsbury Garden Club, she knows that each and every aspect of her garden is influenced by someone else.

“Gardening is kind of like any other creative activity,” Cairns said. “It’s not a solo project. You get your inspiration from other gardeners. You get their ideas, and you get plants from them.”

Cairns has lived in her Shrewsbury house for about 20 years. But it wasn’t until three or four years ago that she started to get serious about her gardening.

“I’ve always enjoyed gardening, and I always kind of dabbled in it,” Cairns said. “But I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on it, and I didn’t really know what to do with it.”

AnneMarie Cairns’ garden. Photo by Monica Sager.

Her communal garden is filled with many influences: tips she gathered from others in the Gardening Club; flowers she received as a Mother’s Day gift; the sweet pea in honor of her father; plant’s from friends’ plots; and even the shape of the garden she learned from neighbors and friends, to have a natural flow.

The garden around Cairns’ house has many different shapes, textures and movements. She wanted the flow of the garden to allow the wildlife and forestry around her house to be embraced within her plots. The plants are laid out in waves instead of a typical straight line. She has duplicate plants in multiple areas, creating more balance and emphasis in specific areas.

“The goal of my garden is to have the garden transition to the woods,” Cairns said. “The ferns and the day lilies are going to be my transition.”

A lot of Cairns’ garden is based on experimenting and figuring out what works best.

“As something dies back, that’s a space for something new,” Cairns said. “This is the gardener — I need to weed and clear so you can see that tree a little better.”

Cairns has recently been focused on plant diversity with advice from Doug Tallamy’s books about inviting wildlife into gardens.

“How much good we can do if we have less lawn and more plants, particularly native plants,” Cairns said.

The Shrewsbury Garden Club, which meets once a month from September through June, also brings in master gardeners to speak on organic practices, how to grow orchids, indoor plants, flower arranging and more. The Club’s primary service is education.

“We have a small group of people that go to the library and have a junior program with the kids,” Cairns said. “We have a seed starting program in June.”

The Club also works with the elderly. Before COVID-19, the group partnered with the Senior Center to get big pots from Home Depot, fill them with soil and allow the older folks to grow tomato plants.

“People in Shrewsbury notice our beautification programs around town,” said Cairns, mentioning the space around the town’s clock that is meant to be well kept year round. “That’s also kind of an inspiration for all of us that want to have something year round.”

Throughout the pandemic, the club met every other month over Zoom. In April, they also did a seed starting program since they all had time to watch over the plants now that they were all home. The Club also had four of its members open their gardens for people to take a look at from a safe distance.

“The biggest thing from the pandemic was seeing what other people were doing, talking to other people,” Cairns said. “But also you’re home. You’re not distracted from things. I only went to the supermarket once every two weeks. So I was like ‘Okay. I have an hour. Let’s go weed something. Let’s go plant something.’”

Photo by Monica Sager.

Cairns says her garden is never finished. She’s always rearranging, replanting and finding new plants to add. She has plants next to each other that bloom at different intervals, allowing her and her neighbors to enjoy the space throughout the year.

“It’s a community activity,” Cairns said. “You can’t garden all by yourself.”

Cairns said that during the highest point of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of her neighbors and their young granddaughter would walk by Cairns’ house each day. The granddaughter would stop each and every day at the daffodils in Cairn’s front yard.

“I always get a special charge when someone’s walking their dog and they do a look and a stop,” Cairns said. “That makes my day.”