DAPHNE, Ala. — Planning for plants — a topic for this month’s Jubilee Mornings series at Daphne Public Library — will feature Master Gardener Laurie Reddinger at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

Reddinger — a gardener for 30 years — said that people often go out and buy plants and have no set actions to see a garden through.

That’s where she can help.

“How much work are they willing to put in?” she said. “I listen to what … they want from their garden and steer the information that way.”

She can recommend flowers and garden styles that would suit each person’s taste, she said. But the basic garden will have varied needs with the seasons.

“You’re able to prepare in the late winter for the spring,” she said. “You can spend a few hours a day for four weeks or two full weekends.

“It’s hard prep work into some spring planting, then managing and maintaining a garden.”

Once established, the garden requires care, two to three hours, three days a week, she said.

“Everyone takes July and August off because it’s just too hot; then by September you’re ready to go again with the fall planting and preparation for winter and cleaning out the gardens.”

She said the preparation time ends in reaping the benefits.

“After preparation it’s more sit back and watch and enjoy; weed when you need to or feed them when you need to,” she said.

Reddinger grew up on a farm and watched her parents tend a vegetable garden. She has lived in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Florida, which helped her experience different soil and garden types, she said.

“I planted cottage gardens with daisies and large cone flowers (in Pennsylvania),” she said. “I had a ‘survival of the fittest’ theory; they’d grow so big and I’d dig them up and split them and plant some elsewhere.”

She has one small cottage garden and other gardens with one or two varieties of She has one small cottage garden and other gardens with one or two varieties of flowers at her Daphne home.

“I have a wide interest in the types of flowers but I learned how to maintain them for my level of energy,” she said.

Her interest in plants stems from learning about gardens from her mother-in-law, she said.

“She showed me so many varieties; she would just open up a book and try one of everything,” Reddinger said. “She was a great mentor and really got me going.”

Reddinger has worked as a teacher  —  kindergarten, elementary school and adult seminars  —  and retired after her 2006 move to Alabama when she took courses and volunteered her time to become a master gardener, she said.

She read, took tests and volunteered on a telephone help line.

“We help people, in community, in their own landscape; volunteer, help people find answers and help them keep going,” she said. “It’s a way to use the love of gardening to give back to community and to use our talent.”

The studies have helped her find what she loves most about gardening, she said.

“My dad grew up on a farm and my brothers and sisters have vegetable gardens,” she said. “I found it interesting that everything I can read in a book I already learned from nature.

“I watch the sun and see where it goes, watch where the water puddles form and know what plant won’t like that spot.

“Master gardening has really put me in that knowledge side that I used in my career and now with my hobby and passion and I’m watching it all come together.”

Jubilee Mornings takes place the first Wednesday of each month at the Daphne Public Library, located at U.S. Highway 98 and Whispering Pines Road. Refreshments will be provided by Friends of Daphne Public Library after the presentation.