A wife, mother and head gardener at Jenkins Arboretum

Maggie Knapp is about as lean and fit as a 50-year-old woman can be. And no wonder: She's spent literally half her life working outdoors at Jenkins Arboretum in Devon, where she's the head gardener.

"Working outdoors" sounds as if she's leisurely raking leaves. Knapp does that, yes, but she also splits wood, chases trespassing deer, mans the snow plow and wields a steady chain saw. She prunes, plants, propagates, and weeds - and hauls a yeoman's load of mulch.

You can't miss her. Spend even an hour at this 46-acre public garden, and she'll whiz by you in a golf cart, troubleshooting and problem-solving along 1.2 miles of paved walkways. You'll also find her doing walkabouts with visitors, training volunteers in the greenhouse, or, inside the John J. Willaman Education Center, sitting cross-legged on a quilt reading nature stories to kids.

"My mom does the job of 10 men. She's pretty much my Superwoman," says Samantha Knapp, 25, a senior at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and the elder of Maggie and Jeffrey Knapp's two daughters.

Younger daughter Madelyn is 22, a 2011 Duquesne University grad and promotions assistant at B101-FM radio. She just applied for a marketing job at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh. "So maybe the apple won't fall too far from the tree," she says.

When their parents moved into the Browning House at Jenkins in 1986 - Jeff, a onetime landscaper, was the first to be hired, followed by Maggie - the arboretum was a relative youngster, too. It only opened to the public in 1976.

As the Knapp family grew - and grew up - so did Jenkins. It now has maybe 30,000 visitors a year, though it's hard to know. The arboretum is open 365 days a year with free admission, so people come and go.

The Knapps had never heard of the place until shortly before Jeff's job interview. "Jenkins was off the radar screen, not ready for prime time," he says.

For years after that, it was considered "a hidden gem" in the region's glittering array of public gardens. "A lot of locals still don't know it's here," says Jeff, 54, now creative director for a Bucks County communications firm and the arboretum's longest-serving volunteer.

But it's not a secret anymore. And while, as Jeff says, "it's not Longwood Gardens and it's not Morris Arboretum," Jenkins is a special place.