M.J.

Today is the one-year anniversary of my grandmother's death. She was my best friend and confidante- I miss her every day. While not the whole reason I am in horticulture, she certainly had a significant impact.

I can remember her working in her garden all through my life. There was a bank of creeping phlox by her driveway that would bloom around Easter and I loved it. To a five-year-old, the bank seemed to go on forever, and I was taken by the blanket of deep pink flowers. I think that was the spark that started the flame.

She gave me this picture a couple of years ago from one of her many albums. On the back she wrote "Kari's first horticulture lesson."She and my grandfather were tied to the earth. I lived with them in the summers during college and we would spend the cool evenings picking vegetables, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. And from this harvest, we canned and froze what we could not eat fresh. This time of year, she would often make a cobbler of peaches, blackberries and raspberries which she called "Mixed Berry Cobbler." It was the best (Hey Kelley- you want to try to replicate it next time we are home?).

And her flowers. She favored old-fashioned plants like Bearded Iris, Flowering Almond, Queen Anne's Lace, Money Plant and Phlox. Her flower arrangements were often a combination of these flowers that she seemed to effortlessly collect from her garden. I have a few of the vases she commonly used, although my arrangements are much simpler.

All in all, she was a special women and I just wanted to share that today.

(My God. When did this journal go from plant disease to birds and tears? Soon it will refocus, I promise.)