I love plants and have been interested in them since I was a little girl. My father gardened a great deal and my brother and I were always drafted as manual labor. I have memories of sifting dirt through screens to get the particles in uniform pieces and weeding the vegetable garden when we had one. My grandmother grew geraniums in the back yard and they loved the California weather, growing to huge shrubby borders. I was often drafted to pull some and help her tame the pile. The smell of geranium plants are a pleasant childhood memory for me. I am guilty of going to nurseries and plant shops and squeezing the random leaf just to get a whiff of childhood.

As an adult, I have far less inclination to have a perfect yard though I do dream of it. Every spring I get out there and dig for an hour or two, plop in a stray rosemary or lavender bush and hope for the best. Last year we had a terrible drought (we're actually still in it) so most everything died because I refuse to water more than the suggested watering schedule says.

I have three fairly happy rosemary bushes and a few lavender which have managed to survive. I have a couple of oregano and a stray sage or two but nothing really happy and full and as green as the plants I remember from childhood. The yard is a giant patch of dry weed stalks. I feel that I have betrayed my heritage of gentleman farmers.

But things do grow here and there. I have taken to painting plants or taking photos of other people to compensate the lack of my own green thumb.