We’ve been redoing our back and side yard gardens this spring, and I couldn’t be more excited. New raised beds mean less stooping over for my tired old back, and new rich soil means we might actually get some decent veggies this year!

Meanwhile, I continue to collage with my friend Martha and I’m often inspired by flowers and gardens. I put all those seed catalogs that keep piling up to good use, cutting them into flower arrangements and fanciful dream gardens for cards to flower and garden loving friends.

Making gardens, real or imaginary, brings me back to my “roots” so to speak. My father always planned and executed a large vegetable garden in our yards – first in New Jersey and then in Vermont. After he passed away, my mother kept the tradition, enlisting both myself and my sister in the work.

I hate weeding and I never really liked picking green beans (they are really hard to see among their foliage!). I especially detest squash bugs, spotted cucumber beetles, and slugs, and whatever likes to take big bites out of ripe tomatoes. But I do like to play in the dirt. And to eat the results.

Watching things sprout and grow brings us hope. We all need a big dose of hope right now.

Here are some plant and garden pix, real and imagined.