How it All Began

"Who's in charge of the herb garden?" I idly asked our volunteer director, E.  It was a ridiculously cold day in February, and my partner and I were shivering under fleece hats and winter coats behind the gift shop table.  A few yards down Woodburn's long, sloping lawn, a reenactor was telling Gullah folk tales; to her right, an enthusiastic quilter chatted with customers about her techniques.  Another reenactor's voice boomed inside the historic cabin.  It was the Pendleton Historic Foundation's annual African-American Heritage Day at Woodburn Plantation (which isn't actually a plantation), and it was early enough in the year that I could still look at a 15-by-15 patch of scrub and think there might actually be someone in charge of it.

 But hey, daffodils, you guys!

E explained to me that every couple of years, some master gardener comes to her offering to take it over, at which point she gives them $40 and never sees them again.

Restoring a historical herb garden at a nineteenth-century home was just entirely too much temptation for a girl whose garden consists of a strange collection of South Carolina native plants growing on a second-floor deck with northern exposure.

I went away deep in thought, conferred briefly with my partner, and came back to E:  "I'm not a master gardener, just an enthusiastic amateur, but I work Monday afternoons right across the street, and I drive in with Megan, so I have nothing to do Monday mornings.  Want me to clean that up?"

She showed me which key opened the garden shed.