Abstract
I learned to garden from my mother. Every year it was the same-Mom watched while Dad prepared the plot for vegetables. Dad wanted perfectly straight, even rows; he hammered in small stakes to mark the beginning and end of the row. Next he stretched a string between the stakes until it was taut. Then, guided by the string, he hoed the row. He measured off a foot or two between rows and then repeated the process of staking and stretching string. Mom waited until Dad had done all of his planting before she sowed flower seeds in the spaces he had left her on the borders of the garden and the edges of the yard. She loved flowers which could be relied on year after year and didn't mind where they were planted-red, orange poppies with black centers, tall sunflowers sharing the narrow space between our driveway and the neighbor's garage with daylillies at their shoulders and violets at their feet, feathery purple asters, scarlet irises, and rainbows of marigolds and zinnias. I remember her delight whenever she discovered that flowers she had planted in one space had somehow made their way to other spots about the yard or planted roots in neighbors' yards.