Growing in every season

The BA community is filled with avid gardeners who appreciate and enhance the beauty of its 24.2-acre grounds. Full-time resident Mary Folsom brought her gardening hobby with her to the BA and she nurtures her plants year-round.

Mary has lived at the BA for a year and a half and her fourth-floor apartment has an abundance of south-facing windows.

“My apartment is sunny all the time and is the best vantage point for growing plants,” says Mary.  “I had them in there all winter. Once the threat of frost is gone, I move them outside. I tell them they have to get outdoors! I think I had 15 in there this year, and they did all the work.”

Mary spent 50 years in Kennebunkport, ME living on two acres of land where she enjoyed growing more vegetables than flowers. Asparagus was one of her favorites.  Now her collection of plants is mostly geraniums.

“When I came from my other residence, I brought nine geraniums with me, I wasn’t going to let those get thrown out,” says Mary.  “And then over time people have given me more geraniums. Some of them are the ones that were in planters at the front of the BA last year.”

Mary’s collection lives in large pots by the back stairway from the parking lot down to the Original Building throughout the summer where everyone walking by can enjoy it. Then when the cooler temperatures arrive, the geraniums will migrate back to her sunny apartment for the winter. What a gift to the BA community!