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