Fear not the term “native plant.” They can be easy. So easy. You have probably heard about them in the context of their being resilient additions to the garden. It is true. They don’t bat an eye at our soils (compacted clay!), our droughts (weeks without rain!), or our summers (stark heat and humidity!).

I am here to tell you that the native plants in my garden show up every year — multiplying and keeping-on with very little help from me. I have stuck them in those clay soils, under black walnuts, in bald sun, in deep shade. And while I returned to the comfort of my home and couch, they figured out how to eke out an existence in Sugar Hollow.

Native plants have become easier to find at nurseries, as well. Many will mark them, or put them in a section of just native plants. I find some of mine online (including, believe it or not, ebay) and at native plant sales. Your local native plant society probably has one of these sales once a year.

Here are my present top three — all are good starters. Two of which I own, the third being on my wish list. …

My gardens are teetering on a major reconstruction. Things that feel laborious and hang over me are getting excised. I work, I parent, I clean house. My garden should not be a drudgery, but fun.

The one part of my garden that always gives back to me, without a whole lot of labor, is my herb garden. I mulch a little. I weed a little. But, I harvest a lot. (It will totally make the cut.)

I recommend all of these plants for beginner herb gardeners — as they are tough specimens. All are perennials, except the calendula. I have included some favorite recipes and potions, as well. …

Historic Garden Week in Virginia (April 21-28) is a good thing and a bad thing in my gardening world. Good because it happens, really, at the most beautiful, forget yourself and your responsibilities, spring fever time of year. Bad, because when I should be home tending to my own garden, I blithely flit out the door, into the car and traipse around Virginia to stare at other people’s gardens. We’ll just call that invested time for inspiration and move on, yes?

And, the inspiration is everywhere. And the flitting, on my part, is rampant. And the gardens and the homes, well, they are just breathtaking.

This year, there are 191 gardens open to visitors. Prices vary from $15 to $40 per house or tour, or you can buy a statewide pass for $175. Since 1929, proceeds from this week have supported historic landmarks and their preservation. It also funds fellowship programs for graduate students of landscape architecture.

Some highlights (a few of which fall into my wish list) …

At 45 feet by 125 feet, it’s a small garden. But it sticks with me more than any of the grander, Gold Coast estates that I regularly visited during my time in New York. Anne Spencer’s garden in Lynchburg, Va., is a quiet treasure. Very loved, and now maintained by volunteers, it is pure magic.

Anne Spencer was a Harlem Renaissance poet, mom, civil rights activist and gardener who lived from 1882 until 1975. She gardened for 70 of those years. Anne was also African-American, living in a time of Jim Crow laws and racial segregation, and her garden gave her a safe place to be and create and think. Because Lynchburg didn’t have lodging options for African-Americans during much of her adult life, Anne’s home and garden provided a lush, salon-type rest stop for guests such as George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes and W.E.B. DuBois.

Her life as a gardener was complete and constant. She would make daytrips with her husband to find a particular plant. She would, very often, garden at night by lantern or candlelight. The window of her writing studio, Edankraal, overlooked the length of the garden through stained glass windows. Her writings and poetry reflected this unwavering relationship with the natural world. …

(how cute is this illustration by Lucile Prache!)

The birds are back. Winter always feels a little too long, but I know when I hear the birds singing in the leafless, budding trees as the sun comes up in morning sky, spring is about to make it’s much-anticipated entrance. And I am always ready for it.

Spring is a time of renewal and growth after a long season of quiet, cold hibernation. And, without hesitation, as soon as the temperatures hit 60 degrees, the doors are flung open to let the sun pour inside and onto the petrified wooden floors in my house, to illuminate the dark, shadowy corners that have accumulated since that first snow, which seemed like years ago. I pack away the flannel blankets and I pull open the curtains and cast out the gloomy veil that has hovered over my couch and the little place where I had surrendered my winter flogged body to months of syndicated television programs and daydreams of warmer times.

So it is out of the icy blue winter and on to the pink, splendid spring! Oh, how I am ready to step out into the sun and dig in the dirt.

Spring. It is a heady, klutzy time for me. I spend a good part of it tripping over curbs and walking into things because I am too busy looking up into the trees. Or distractedly trying to get a glimpse of someone’s front garden through an inviting gate. Or snapping my head around to figure out what scent I just walked past/under/through.

I have an image in my mind’s eye of how next winter’s pantry will look. It will glimmer a little with glass and metal. It will hold much promise. It will provide for my family.  It will be filled with rows of mason jars twinkling and inviting with harvested treasures tucked away for future consumption. …

Do you have someone in your life who prefers dirt over decadent Valentine’s Day gifts? Gardening gifts don’t necessarily need to be 100 percent pragmatic or completely utilitarian. They just need to conjure up daydreams of this year’s garden and all of its pie-in-the-sky possibilities. Here are a few ideas — some of which are already established favorites of mine and some things that are on my personal wish list.

I started growing vegetables in a cold frame two years ago — beginning the process in early February and growing something through early April. It was a big experiment that surprised me in many ways, not the least of which was its success. So this year, we are branching out to something more permanent and …

While visiting a neighboring mama for tea on a mid-winter morning, I marveled at her kitchen window alcove filled (filled!) with lettuce greens. They were growing out of rustic boxes she built herself. Not only were they in the perfect spot for thriving, but they were in the perfect spot for snipping and eating. I, …