Some of my best memories from my childhood are of visiting my grandparents.  In particular, I remember my grandfather’s garden.

As a little girl, my grandparents’ backyard seemed huge to me, although it probably wasn’t as big as I remember it.  Evidence of my grandfather’s green thumb could be seen everywhere: Vegetables grew all alongside the house, and gardens extended out six feet from each side of the backyard.  The very back of the backyard was a cool, green cave of bushes and a tree, a place where my sister and my cousin and I spent many hour playing.

My grandfather was remarkably knowledgeable about gardening.  If you had asked him about phalaenopsis care, he probably would have been one person out of a hundred — or even a thousand — who would have known what you were talking about.  I think some of the flowers I remember in his garden were cattleyas, so he would have known about cattleya care too.

Something else I remember about my grandfather’s garden were his roses.  He told me recently that he had about 30 rosebushes, but they seemed more like a hundred to me back then!  Maybe he doesn’t remember very well anymore.  Regardless of how many there were, though, I remember how good they smelled in the summertime.  To this day, peach is my favorite kind of rose, because it smells the most like my grandfather’s garden did, with all the scents mixing together.  I wish I’d paid more attention as a child and learned more about rose and orchid care from my grandfather, so that I could grow these beautiful plants myself!

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