I grew up on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee but sadly have lost even a hint of my Southern accent after so many years away. Unbeknownst to me as a child, I must have been absorbing a great deal of “earth” and “plant” talk from my elders. I had as my playground my grandfather”s arboretum of hundreds of acres to ride horses, fish, just play. He had carved out of the base of the mountain a wildflower preserve that has been honored nationally and by the Royal Society of the Arts and has become the Chattanooga Nature Conservancy since his death. Reflection Riding. You should visit some day.
I have had my turns as a homesteader during the 70′s, a journalist for 3 newspapers, a baker for 3 restaurants, a criminal defense attorney, , a rabid parent volunteer for absolutely everything and through it all, a gardener. From labeling wildflowers at Reflection Riding to planting my first vegetable garden behind my college housing, I have never been without dirt under my fingernails. My gardens carried me through law school and the city’s P-Patches allowed me my fix before we lived in a home. I finally gave up all other forms of making a living in 1987 and went back to school to study horticulture.
To my husband and my children, my gratitude for underwriting my early years and embracing me no matter how filthy and sore I was at the end of the day. I gradually removed almost any lawn in our yard for more planting beds; I have spent many a night and weekend engrossed in designing gardens. I have whittled away a comfortable retirement stash with unusual plants that have often died in my design experiments. Yet I am so lucky, I would choose nothing else and am never, never bored by my work (except maybe the bookkeeping part) and have made life-long friends from clients and fellow designers and still have so much more to learn…
