One lifetime is never enough to accomplish one's horticultural goals. If a garden is a site for the imagination, how can we be very far from the beginning?

One lifetime is never enough to accomplish one's horticultural goals. If a garden is a site for the imagination, how can we be very far from the beginning?

Gardeners instinctively know that flowers and plants are a continuum and that the wheel of garden history will always be coming full circle.

My mind's never gone very far away from what I wanted to accomplish.

A black cat among roses,
phlox, lilac-misted under a quarter moon,
the sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock. The garden is very still.
It is dazed with moonlight,
contented with perfume...

That was one of our goals at the beginning of the season.