Donna Rowland leaves no item behind - literally, not one thing.

The 68-year-old Westside resident, known as the "recycle queen" to her friends, can foresee the potential re-use of every item she finds.

"I can turn an old, discarded item into something new again," Rowland said. "It's like bringing it back to life with a new purpose."

While the resourceful recycling queen says she doesn't scour the city for her treasures, most of her "treasures" just seem to find their way to her.

"I don't drive around the city digging through garbage, but I don't let anyone I know throw anything away without asking me first," said Rowland. "I have a hand cart and my van and I'll come pick it up."

Rowland has called Jacksonville home since 1972, when she and her former husband - who is now retired from the Navy - moved here with their children. However, the petite mother of three grown children - she also has five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren - grew up on a farm in upstate New York and says it was there that she learned to make the most of what she had.

"When you grow up on a farm, you learn to find a use for everything you have," explained Rowland. "I guess that's what got me started."

Rowland earned her general contractor's license in 2003 and owned several businesses before retiring in 2005.

At home, she has converted an old garage into a commercial-grade carpenter's dream workshop for her ongoing projects.

"I love working with my hands," said Rowland, who took a community education woodworking class at a local school. "It brings me great satisfaction when I come up with a unique project and finally see it completed."

One of those unique projects Rowland "came up with" was her strawberry planters.

"I had collected a bunch of different sized, sturdy cardboard boxes over a while, not knowing how I could use them at the time," Rowland said. "Then I thought about making them into planters for my strawberry plants."

Rowland said the entire project took about a month to complete. First, she grouped the boxes together, taped Styrofoam she collected over the years around them to keep them in place, wrapped them with old gutter mesh she found, applied mortar to the boxes so they would withstand the elements, then finally painted them before repotting her strawberry plants.

"I used everything I had on hand," said Rowland. "When you collect things, you've got to be able to envision a use for it sometime down the road. It's a great feeling when you made something new again."

Another project that brings Rowland gratification is her plant arbor, which is filled with a variety of plants and vegetables and housed inside of what was formerly an above-ground swimming pool.

"I didn't want to have to deal with the upkeep of the pool, so I decided to turn it into an arbor," said Rowland. "It's an ongoing project that I enjoy working on a little each day. It's like a little bit of heaven on Earth."

The arbor is covered partially with old baseball netting her daughter threw out and screen netting she purchased from a hardware store. "It's to help keep the critters out," she said.

An old fish-themed shower curtain that she has framed with leftover 2-by-4s graces the side of an outdoor shed, creating the look of an aquarium.

Rowland's front lawn is filled with remnants of old carpet topped with mulch and pine straw and several much-cared-for mini gardens.

She is restoring a set of old, thrown out kitchen cabinets and converting them into extra shelving for a spare bedroom.

"That's the thing about my hobby, you must have space to store all these treasures and have a place to work on them," Rowland said.

When Rowland isn't turning someone's trash into a new treasure, she's reading books and then recycles them for new ones with a group of friends.

joy.battehfreiha@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4058