CAPE ELIZABETH – Jane L. Taylor, well-known designer of children’s gardens, died on Oct. 3, 2019, in Portland, Maine. Jane was born on Aug. 19, 1935, in Torrington, Connecticut, the only child of Levi Reinald Lundeen, a Congregationalist minister, and Margaret Rains Lundeen, a church organist and piano teacher.

Jane grew up in New Preston, Connecticut, and later, Philadelphia, and Norwalk, Connecticut, where she graduated from high school. She attended Marietta College in Ohio, majoring in biology, and graduated in 1957. She received an M.A. in botany at the University of Illinois, where she met her husband, J. Lee Taylor, whom she married in 1958. She had two children with Lee, Timothy Dean, born in 1961 (married to Sherry B. Ortner), and Kristin Lee, born in 1963.

Jane worked for many years as an outdoor education consultant for the Haslett Public School system in Michigan, and later as the director of annual gift programs for the Michigan 4-H Foundation. While there, she raised money for, and designed, the Michigan 4-H Children’s Garden at Michigan State University, the first garden of its kind in North America. She was the founding curator of this garden, which received widespread recognition, and was appointed as an adjunct professor in the Department of Horticulture at MSU. She was on teams that designed the Kids’ Garden at Walt Disney World’s Epcot, the San Diego Botanic Garden, and the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, among others. The American Horticultural Society created the Jane L. Taylor Award for children and youth gardening in 2000 and Jane was its first recipient. Among many other awards and honors, she received a Distinguished Alumna Award from Marietta College in 2017.

Jane’s passion for her family, many friends, and plants was matched only by her desire to teach young people about plants and nature. She possessed a boundless enthusiasm for these and many other things – antiques, pioneer living, and, later in life, cooking – and it was this enthusiasm that gave her the ability to think through the eyes of a child and design gardens that would educate children while they had fun.

A memorial service will be held in summer 2020.

Arrangements entrusted to Hobbs Funeral Home, South Portland, Maine. Online condolences may be expressed at www.hobbsfuneralhome.

Donations in Jane’s memory can be made to the:

Michigan 4-H Children’s Gardens through the Michigan 4-H Foundation

446 W. Circle Drive

East Lansing, MI 48824

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