Gardening has been a part of my life and my family's life since I can first remember. My grandma and my great-uncle had lovely roses that they enjoyed and babied like children. Grandma was a long-time member of her local garden club, and my aunt has the most wonderful flower gardens which are bright with color, like living quilts. And mom (and my step-mom, too) saw to it that our houses always had flowers, sometimes even a little patch which was mine alone to plant and tend.

When I was a child, my family had a huge garden of vegetables which we kids helped prepare, plant, weed eternally, and pick. I learned the delight of growing things and the satisfaction of sustaining yourself from what you've worked hard to grow. We also had a strawberry patch, a grape arbor, and apple, peach and cherry trees. My brothers and I could forage like wild things as we played outside. It was a wonderful way to grow up.

And picking wild raspberries is a family tradition of long-standing. It's well worth burrs, scratches and mosquito bites for the quiet, companionable time in the woods and the reward of fresh-baked wild raspberry pie at the end of the day. I always try to time my summer visit back home to coincide with raspberry season.

What do I garden now? Nothing but a very large indoor fern, a shamrock and two Christmas cactuses. I live in an upstairs apartment, with no dirt to call my own. And I've tried porch boxes, really I have. But I'm foiled at every turn by a pack of malicious squirrels who live only to dig up my bulbs, eat my shoots, and sleep in my flowers. But when I have a house of my own....

Eve's favorite flowers
Lilacs, most definitely. I love their color, their smell, their graceful leaves, their delicate flowers.
Dafodills. They mean spring is here.
Sweet peas. Happy childhood memories.
Roses. They always remind me of my grandma. Plus they smell great!
Irises. So many colors and shapes and fragrances! And they remind my of my aunt.
Dogwood blossoms. I don't know why, I just really like these. I love to see the white dogwoods in the spring, clean and bright among the new green of an Indiana woods. Plus we used to have a lovely pink dogwood in front of the house where I grew up.
Wild roses. One of the lovely things of this world. They grow unbidden along the woodland roadsides of Indiana in the summer. No one tends them, but they make beauty for all to see.