Most of my friends and family know how much I love gar-dening, and I love talking about it almost as much as I love actually getting the dark, rich Georgia dirt packed under my fingernails. It’s therapeutic for me — some people do yoga, but I choose to fill a flowerbed with wildflowers or divide my irises.

Of all types of yard work, growing flowering plants is my favorite gardening pastime. I often say, “So many flowers to grow, so little time and money to grow them…” And I often joke with my husband and say, “If anything happens to me, please don’t let my flowers die,” a comment that distresses him greatly, because he doesn’t know the difference between a hibiscus and a peony plant. He calls most of my flower va-rieties “petunsies,” his made-up, catch-all term for all the flowers in our yard.

There is a line in Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” that speaks volumes to me. It talks about God’s displeasure with anyone who walks by the color purple in a field without notic-ing it, implying that God creates his landscapes to please us and gets irritated if we don’t pause and take it all in from time-to-time. He sows butterfly weed in roadside medians for splashes of orange against the green grass backdrops. He surprises us with large sprawling masses of crimson clover. His artistic handiwork is evident in patches of Queen Ann’s Lace and purply thistle blooms.

Well last year, I had a hydrangea growing next to the front steps of our house that thrilled me for weeks with its bloom-ing extravaganza — dozens of heads of blooms of all different hues of blues and purples. I looked at it every day, smiled, and sighed. I would point to it and say to my husband, “Just look at that beautiful plant. How could anyone pass that hy-drangea and not notice how glorious it is?” He would shrug his shoulders and go back into the house virtually unmoved. I still can’t understand his indifference.

I credit my love of gardening to good genes. I come from a long line of farmers who loved growing things and working the land. My father’s mother always grew a row of zinnias in her garden and called them “old maids,” a term I use fondly today when I grow them in my own vegetable garden. Mom, an avid gardener herself, tells delightful stories of her Grand-mother’s (my Great Grandmother’s) spectacular flower gar-dens just south of Eastman, Ga. Through the years, Mom has generously given me heirloom plants of various origins — stalky garden phlox from the yard surrounding my Grand-mother Lanier’s farmhouse, Ageratum from Great Grand-mother Jarrard’s flowerbed, Confederate Rose from my step father’s brother’s bush, or perhaps an Althea (Rose of Sharon) propagated from a bush that Aunt Joyce gave to her years ago. I’ve found that the flowers are more stunning when there is a family connection or story behind them.

People often ask me what my favorite garden flower is, and I immediately reply, “All of them,” because flower gardening is a lot like a symphony. The sound of a single flute by itself is indeed melodic and beautiful, but that flute accompanied by violins and other instruments is truly magnificent. A buttery-colored daffodil blooming by itself in early spring is divine, but that same daffodil blooming alongside a forsythia bush (yellow bells) or underneath a Georgia dogwood tree sings more loudly to my soul.

I grow zinnias because they remind me of Grandmother Lanier, who herself, was as tough, adaptable, and colorful as a raggedy zinnia. I grow pansies because they alone, grace my yard with colorful blooms from the first frost in October until the daffodils make their welcomed appearance. I grow azal-eas because I grew-up appreciating the purply-pink Formosa azaleas that grow nearly wild in the southern regions of Georgia. I grow petunias because they remind me of my Grandmother Jarriel. I grow black-eyed Susans because they remind me of my nephew, Jake. I grow morning glories be-cause the plants remind me of Mom’s backyard. I grow flow-ers — colorful, beautiful, satisfying gifts from God.