Gardening couple offer inspiration in winter

I’m ready for winter and its wild temperature swings to be over. I’m going nuts, and too often I find myself bundling up on the couch and skipping my morning walk with the dog.

Looking for someone to commiserate with, I reached out to avid gardener Linda Laine, a Westerville resident who through the years has supplied The Dispatch with some beautiful flower photographs.

“Avid” actually far understates Laine’s passion.

She and her husband, Jeff, who have been married for 47 years, have a half acre where gardens dominate. They have a children’s garden for their grandkids, a trellis garden, an arbor garden and a 40-footlong wedding garden, where their son was married. The list goes on.

The Laines planted 185 dahlias in the spring and, in the fall, put away 700 tubers — divided, packaged and labeled. They’ll donate some to the Greater Columbus Dahlia Society, sell some on the day of their neighborhood garage sale and plant most of the rest.

“Tom McNutt was doing a show from our house for NBC4 years ago, and he told us then, ‘Don’t get involved in the dahlia cult,’ ” Laine said with a laugh, referring to the local horticultural expert who died in December. “I never knew what that meant until we were already involved in the dahlia cult.”

The couple serve on the executive board of directors of the Dahlia Society. And Mrs. Laine oversees publicity for the Westerville Garden Club as well as WesterFlora, an award-winning garden tour for which she also recruits gardens and volunteer musicians and singers.

“Last year, I had over 50 people singing or playing music,” she said, “including the entire chorus of the Columbus Chorus of the Sweet Adelines. That