Lauren Wiseman:
Adrian,
This column is a bittersweet farewell. It is late October, and the time has come for me to leave the garden to prepare for my next project, motherhood.

So much has happened during the past seven months while you have been showing me the delights and satisfaction -- and hard work -- of gardening. I thought the city girl in me would never develop a green thumb, but I guess you can take a girl from Manhattan, put her in some wellies and teach her how to use a fork and a hoe.

I have come to see parallels between gardening and pregnancy. As I tended to my new ground covers and tomatoes, watering and trimming through the challenge of a hot, dry summer, I was also nurturing a baby inside me. And just as I began gardening in April as a novice, I will begin motherhood this month in the same way. Any chance you'll be available at 2 a.m. should I have any pressing questions?

Working with you on this project has taught me that gardening requires patience, persistence and physical strength -- qualities I can surely use in every facet of life. It has also expanded my sense of home to include the surrounding life out of doors. I now see our house and our garden as one, rather than separate entities.
-- Lauren

Adrian Higgins:
Lauren,
A poignant place to leave it. As a parent and a gardener, I too see direct parallels between raising children and cultivating a garden. There are daily obligations and, sometimes, frustrations, but just when you may be feeling the most exasperated, the big picture comes into focus and you see you have nurtured something beautiful and important.

I have not tutored anyone directly before, so it is really encouraging to see your growth. You can read so much about gardening, but there is nothing as useful as someone showing you the rudiments, getting to think like a plant, and then developing your own intuition.

This isn't to say you won't make blunders. I once planted an avenue of 22 Irish junipers that were ill suited to the site and region and soon perished. I thought because they were sold at a local nursery that they would grow in local conditions. What a fool!

I know you are going to be distracted in the next few weeks and months, but I would leave you with this thought: The fall and winter are the seasons when the garden shuts down, but the gardener comes alive. Until December, there are trees and shrubs to plant -- they will grow to form the very structure of the garden. As the winter progresses, one has the luxury of time to sit and consider the garden's future: to read about the aspects of good design, to discover plants that do well in our region, to really assess the site conditions and develop a plan for the next area or two to tackle. If you are feeling vigorous, fall and winter are the months to remove overgrown vegetation. This may not be a priority for you this winter, but you get the idea.

Finally, think small. You should regard the landscape as having a coherent feel and purpose, but then chop up the tasks into manageable chunks. If you are steadfast, the little tasks accrue into something bigger, and connected.

There is one other reason to stick with it. I think one of the enduring and comforting memories in life is being a small child in a garden of flowers. When your child is raised in a gardening family, he or she will, in turn, become a gardener, and live a richer life for that connection to nature. Good luck, Lauren, and don't ever change the wellies.
-- Adrian