It's in my blood.

As far back as I can remember, plants have played an important role in my life. Not that I have always paid them lots of attention--they've just been a large part of the scenery as I grew up. And somehow, the story of my life is intertwined with those leaves and vines...

My dad was an avid gardener. To call gardening "his hobby" would be an inaccuracy. He didn't do it simply because he enjoyed it; rather it was some innate driving force that I never understood as a child... He planted at least an acre of land with everything from corn, squash, beans, and sweet peas to cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and turnips. He made greenhouse frames out of metal and put up sheets of plastic every year so that he could grow tomatoes and chiles in a climate not suited to these types of plants. He'd collect seeds just to see if he could get them to sprout.

He was a tree-hugger, even though he may not have identified with that term. I remember fishing and hiking trips when he'd pack his trowel, "just in case." I always thought it was in case he needed to dig a hole. It wasn't until I was about 10 that I figured out what "just in case" meant. We were hiking through the National Forest when he saw it: the perfect seedling. Out came the trowel. He gently dug the tree out and pulled out some scraps of burlap to wrap the root in and an old butter container in which to carry the baby tree home. That was 19 or 20 years ago, and that seedling is now over 30 feet tall--a handsome pine that shades Mom's backyard.

I remember all of these things so vividly. My garden is a direct link to him, for it is there that these memories rush back to me, and it is there that I can find him: