My memories of summer growing up in the South are dotted with visions of my mother, covered in dirt, garden spade in one hand, handful of weeds in the other. She inherited a green thumb from her father, an orthopedic surgeon who used to unwind from work with his hands in the soil of his Tennessee garden.
At one point in my childhood, the backyard of my childhood home was meticulously landscaped, manicured to the nines with immaculately trimmed bushes, coiffed geraniums, and perfectly pruned pansies. But around the time I was in high school, Mom’s gardening strategy changed completely.
