In the middle our unrelenting Texas heatwave, I had a trip of a lifetime. My parents emigrated to Canada when I was five years old. I grew up without knowing my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. This past month all sixteen cousins met, most of us for the very first time in our lives. It was incredible!

What was most amazing was the common thread of gardening. I have mentioned before my cousin David in the Shetland Islands. Believe it or not, it is harder to garden there than here in Texas. We have brutal heat, while they have non-stop winds, lots of rain, rabbits, blight and an extremely short growing season. My cousin Raymond in Wales has to deal with rain, slugs and snails. Letters from my Uncle in New Zealand in the early 1940’s talked of how his garden was growing. And a visit to my cousin Stanley’s home in north London was a delight – everything I would have expected in a typical British garden. It was such a delight to discover that gardening must be part of my family’s DNA.