Pleasant childhood memories always center around my grandparents' gardens.

My grandmother had an incredible green thumb. Her home always had lush house plants, some in full flower, despite living in a drafty house without central heat. She had little use for formal garden design which she considered "too fussy". Her gardens were a riot of color with all sorts of flowers shouldering each other for space in no apparent order. There was always room for just one more new plant ... and one more ... and one more. The concord grape depicted in this block was the first cutting she gave me when we moved into our home 20 years ago. I inherited some of her house plants and many of the plants in our perennial borders are offshoots of hers.

My grandfather helped out by doing the heavy work around the yard which included expanding the beds each spring. My earliest memories of "helping" in the garden were from age 4 or 5. I carefully picked up large, squirming earthworms while following behind him as he spaded over the warming, springtime soil. He gave me a large wooden box filled with soil. For hours, I created ornate homes for the worms with bits of twigs, spring wildflowers, and small stones. Each day I would woefully bring the empty box to him and he would suggest that perhaps they liked "fresh soil" and start me off again. It wasn't until many years later that I realized that he had given me a slatted box so that my new "pets" could easily escape each night.