Carol Wallace

For nearly 25 years I trudged reluctantly off to the University to teach - and if the weather was nice chances were excellent that I stood in front of my classes in my gardening clogs. There was certain to be dirt under my fingernails and weeder's calluses on my index finger. I may as well have hung a big sign around my neck saying "I'd rather be gardening."

Because it was (and is) true.

And if I couldn't be gardening (like when it's winter and there are two feet of snow on the ground, or when it's too dark to tell if I'm on the grass or in the dirt) I wanted to write about gardening. Writing - being a "real writer" was my life's ambition from the time I was eight years old.

And so here I am - doing what I always wanted to do and was too chicken to attempt until the fates decided to give me my wishes. (That's two - I have only one wish left and am saving it for something wonderful. Like maybe just once getting the garden in my yard to look like the one in my imagination.)

I was raised in the big city - Detroit.. Our yards were about the same size as a king-sized mattress. Not much gardening going on. My father was a funeral director so flowers didn't intrigue me much. At least not cut flowers. And definitely not gladiolus.

I went to grad school at University of Iowa where I shared a rented house with two others. It had a yard marginally larger than the ones I grew up with, and for some reason I started itching to somehow put my stamp on the property. That's where I planted my first garden.

Incidentally I picked up a Ph.D. in Communication, which is how I ended up as a college professor in Scranton, PA and a gardener in the nearby town of Chinchilla, PA. I got married to a fellow Communication professor, we bought a gigantic old house with tons of land (and tons of rock!) which needed lots of TLC both inside and out. I've planted real gardens outdoors and created pretend ones in paint and fabric inside.

And I've been gardening and writing about this ever since.