In the News: Dallas Woman Promotes Herb Benefits Through the Years

Reader Contribution by Lindsay Cleek
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What do you think you’ll be doing when you’re 92 years old? Seventy years from now I’d like to picture myself happily retired and relaxing on a warm beach somewhere without a care in the world. The last thing I imagine I’d be doing is maintaining a thriving community garden filled with more than two dozen herbs. But this is just how Lane Furneaux spends her days at North Dallas’ Edgemere retirement community. I was inspired when I read Betsy Friauf’s article At 92, Dallas woman is the Johnny Appleseed of herbs in The Dallas Morning News.Furneaux has spent the last 30 years working to make Dallas a world class herb education center and she isn’t looking to give up anytime soon.

Furneaux first started actively pursuing this goal in 1980 when she convinced the Preston Royal Shopping Center to hold Dallas’s first ever week-long fresh herb celebration. The first 500 copies of her 1989 book Heavenly Herbs: Enjoy Them!quickly sold out and copies have now been sold in every state and continent in the world. When Furneaux’s husband Bill passed away eight years ago, she recruited a longtime friend to help convert a landscaped area of the Edgemere grounds into her own special gardening space.


Photo by John ‘K’/Courtesy Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnkay/

Furneaux has not let age slow her down, despite a myriad of health issues including macular degeneration and sciatica, she continues to spend hours each day in Edgemere’s herb garden and is committed to educating as many people as she can on the culinary and health benefits of fresh herbs.

According to Friauf, John Falldine, Edgemere’s managing director, plans to start expanding the community’s garden plot soon.

Click here to read the original article At 92, Dallas woman is the Johnny Appleseed of herbs.

  • Published on Nov 19, 2010
Tagged with: Reader Contributions
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