wickedfine.com  ·  Fort Collins, Colorado

Wicked Fine.

Marc Fine & Jane Fine

Met over a wildflower at Clark University. Married in Worcester. Raised a family in Connecticut for 38 years. Now retired in the Rockies — gardening, hiking, bending, building, and enjoying every wicked fine minute of it.

Scroll on down
01 — our story

It started with a flower.
It always does.

Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. Early 1970s. A botany course — Common Flowering Plants. Two students sat next to each other, and somewhere between the lab notes and the wildflower specimens, something clicked that had nothing to do with botany — and everything to do with it.

Jane, a Massachusetts girl through and through. Marc, a kid from the Bronx who wandered into her orbit and never quite wandered out. They got married in Worcester, then headed for the Connecticut hills.

Woodstock, CT — the other Woodstock, the quiet one with actual woodlands — became home for 38 years. They raised a family, planted gardens, and built a life. Eventually the mountains called. Fort Collins, Colorado answered.

Where it beganClark University · Worcester, MA
The sparkCommon Flowering Plants, a botany course
JaneMassachusetts born and raised
MarcBronx, NY — wandered north and stayed
MarriedWorcester, Massachusetts
Home for 38 yearsWoodstock, Connecticut
NowFort Collins, Colorado 🏔️
Together51 years and counting
02 — the garden

Still obsessed with
flowering plants.

Some things never change. What started in a botany classroom is now a sprawling perennial garden in Fort Collins — tended together, argued over lovingly, and perpetually in some stage of being redesigned. It's their shared obsession and it shows in every bed.

🌸
The Perennial Collection

Decades of accumulated plant love. Echinacea, Penstemon, Agastache, Heuchera — plants that earn their keep year after year, unlike certain students they once taught.

📋
Plant Reference Guide

Two former teachers keeping meticulous notes on everything they grow. Old habits die hard. The guide covers varieties, sun, zones, and bloom times — the whole curriculum.

View the guide →
📸
Garden Gallery

A photo tour through what they grow — from showy Coneflowers to quietly beautiful Lady's Mantle tucked along the border, exactly where Jane said it should go.

View the gallery →
03 — trails & bikes

The mountains don't
do easy. Neither do they.

Fort Collins sits right at the edge of the Rocky Mountain foothills — which means the trails are always there, always slightly steeper than you remembered, always worth it. Marc and Jane hike them. They bike the paths through town and well beyond it.

There's something about maintaining a garden that makes you appreciate getting away from it occasionally. The mountains have that covered beautifully.

5,003' Fort Collins elevation
300+ Sunny days per year
2 Modes of transport preferred
0 Intentions to slow down
04 — teaching lives

Decades shaping
other people's kids.

Between them, Marc and Jane covered the full range of the human mind — analytical and creative, technical and expressive. It made for interesting dinner conversation for decades. It still does.

Marc
High School Technology

Spent a career teaching teenagers how things work — and more importantly, how to figure it out when they don't. Built things, fixed things, and retired straight into a woodshop where he does exactly the same.

Jane
Middle School Art

Coaxed genuine creativity out of twelve-year-olds for decades, which is either evidence of a rare superpower or extraordinary patience. Most likely both. Her eye for beauty shows up everywhere — especially the garden.

05 — jane's yoga

Jane teaches it.
Marc survives it.

Yoga, like gardening, is mostly about showing up consistently, paying close attention, and not forcing anything that isn't ready yet.

Jane is a gifted yoga instructor — patient, precise, with an uncanny sense of where a body can and can't go. She has been teaching for years, and it shows in the ease with which she holds a room.

Marc is one of her students, which he describes as both a privilege and, on certain mornings involving balance poses, a deeply humbling experience. He keeps showing up. That, Jane will tell you, is the whole point.

06 — the woodshop

Sawdust, a good buddy,
and no deadlines.

Out in the shop, Marc and his best buddy in Fort Collins spend their time the way retired men ought to — making things that didn't exist before, fixing things that didn't strictly need fixing, and generally not being in any particular hurry about any of it.

There is a satisfaction in hand-built work that's hard to articulate to anyone who hasn't felt it. After years in a technology classroom, it turns out the most satisfying tools are often the oldest ones. A good joint fits. A smooth surface stays smooth. That's enough.

From the shop

"After a career teaching technology, the most satisfying tool I own doesn't plug into anything."