INTRODUCTION
NOT LONG AGO a distinguished horticulturist asked me where I had
been trained. Taken by surprise， I answered that I had not had any
professional training， for my work had been in archaeology. Now I
think I gave the wrong answer. I may not have taken nay degree in
horticultural affairs， but， as I look back， I realize I had a vigorous and
thorough apprenticeship at the hands of my innumerable gardening
relatives.
Like many English people of my generation， I grew up taking
gardens and gardening for granted. But just as some families were
consistently church-oriented， and others interested in scientific mat-
ters， my family had always been scholars and gardeners with equal
emphasis on both pursuits. I do， in fact， possess a fund of stories that
deal with the gardening activities of my kin， many of whom I， of
course， never knew. But my own experiences add up to quite a collec-
tion in themselves. As a small child I was forced by my grandmother to
sit beside her for several mornings one summer watching the garden-
ers toil over an enormous bed that stretched the entire length of the
croquet lawn. She had been away， fetching me for a visit， when the
head gardener had planted it in the curves， ribbons， and blocks of
bedded-out annual plants then in vogue. On her return， she disap-
proved of the way it had been done， and we sat there supervising the
men as they reset every single plant (and there must have been
thousands of them) into a pattern that pleased her more. My presence
was required because Grandmama wanted me to understand why the
changes were being made. She was enormously ahead of her time in
realizing that blocks of a single color look best massed together.
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