John Guglielmelli
San Francisco

I learned about plants in two very different ways from my parents. The strongest expression of this teaching grew in the front yard when I was a kid. Mom and dad each planted a tree when they purchased the house in 1961. Mom planted an elegant Chinese elm we as kids called The Leaf Tree (and climbed.) Dad, always practical, planted something we could eat. Peaches. Mom was half Irish, half Cherokee from Missouri with a soulful appreciation of nature. Dad is the son of a first generation Italian farming family who settled in Washington state. Mom saw garden. Dad saw land. But each had a connection to the earth and to growing things, and as usual the earth responded to their love with bloom.

The small lot in Silicon Valley where I grew up held a handful of other plants with a lot of roses Mom and I planted together. Whether it was watching spiders spin webs in the ivy or watching the ants devour dew from a Jupiter's beard - each plant established itself in my heart. I am taken back each time I see Redgold bloom or Double Delight (Mom's favorite rose.) I cried each winter when Mom would cut back the towering Peace rosebush just outside her bedroom window. She would smile and gather the branches together while promising it was a good thing and that it would come back in spring healthier and happier. A tangled blackberry bush growing behind the house along the creek provided us with hot juicy berries lightly sprinkled with dust to stain our fingers, faces and teeth.

Even today I encourage the encroachment of blackberry. Northern California geography is an ever-present inspiration for natural landscapers like me. Colors and textures flung from the Sierras are strewn along the length of the region: rocky cliffs, undulating foothills, oaks, redwoods, meadows, plains, seaside scrub, to name but a few. Of course, the weather allows for almost any type of gardening endeavor and as my mom used to say, even the smallest amount of care goes a long way. If, as my friend Ingrid says, the soul of the house is the old tree out front, then the soul of the gardener is found in the face of his or her garden.

More information: www.sfgardening.com

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