One time my mom asked me how I could remember the Latin names of plants so well. I said “Well, plants are like my friends and I don’t forget the names of my friends.”

And I had someone say “When I am driving, I always see you walking to work in the morning.”

I said, “That’s funny. I never see you.”

They said “I think it is because you are always looking at plants.”

Probably true.

I tend to think of plants as people and grieve when they die. Even killing weeds is hard for me. The plants so obviously want to live – sometimes in the most impossible places, but they give it their all! That’s my excuse for the way my yard looks, anyway.

Here are some friends I met in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian Institution:

Irises