• 89%, At least one of my ancestors kept a garden.
• 41%, At least one of my ancestors kept a victory garden during World War I or World War II.
• 12%, At least one of my ancestors was a professional gardener who was paid for his or her work.
• 12%, At least one of my ancestors was a prize-winning gardener.
• 5%, At least one of my ancestors had a plot in a community garden.
• 8%, At least one of my ancestors was connected to gardening in a way not mentioned above.
• 7%, I have no information to indicate that any of my ancestors were gardeners.
• 49%, I keep a garden.
• 2%, I kept or assisted with a victory garden during World War II.

Nancy Edwards, Sandown, New Hampshire: For the last year of his life, my great-grandfather Walter Henry Metcalf (1865–1948) of Ashland, Massachusetts, kept a diary in which he discussed his garden. He wrote about the weather, his vegetables, and bartering produce with visitors. He even traded his vegetables for water from nearby Natick, which had the best water in the region. One entry related how a neighbor's goat got into Walter’s garden and ate a bunch of plants. I know Walter better because I have his diary.

Lynne Lytle Geane, Kernersville, North Carolina: My grandfather Herbert Bruce Lytle (1880-1949) worked as a railroad engineer in Quebec. His retirement notice in the November 1946 Locomotive Engineers Journal described Herbert as “an expert gardener, what he doesn’t know about flowers isn’t worth knowing.” My father—Herbert’s son—learned about gardening at his father’s knee and passed the knowledge on to me. I am grateful to continue their legacy by cultivating beautiful flowers.

Gary Allard, San Diego, California: My great-grandfather John Cheney was born in 1868 in Dorset, England. His widowed mother worked as a laundress on the Kingston Lacey estate (now a National Trust property) and nearly all his male relatives worked as “agricultural laborers” in the manor’s fields. John apprenticed as a gardener. After immigrating to America in 1916, he worked as a gardener on the properties of wealthy families in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. According to the 1940 census, John lived in a cottage on an employer’s estate. I never knew him, but I am an avid gardener also.

Anne Brown, Brooksville, Florida: My grandmother Leila Beverly Coots was born in 1899. In 1960, she and my grandfather lived in Hialeah, Florida, where I visited them. Leila grew many varieties of roses in their front yard. Some of the roses were so tall that I had to look up to see the tops. My grandmother inspired me to grow roses, but none of mine were as lovely as hers. She was a true gardener.

John Gorman, Lakeville, Massachusetts: My grandfather George L. Barker was born in 1897 in Chillicothe, Missouri, where he worked on farms. He eventually settled in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, and worked as a steam engineer while continuing to farm several acres. I have fond memories of helping him plant corn, beans, tomatoes, lettuce, and carrots. George later moved to Venice, Florida, where the back yards in his neighborhood were flat and uniform. I vividly recall driving down his street and spotting his backyard, which stood out with its corn stalks, pole beans, and other crops. George worked in his home garden well into his nineties and shared his fresh produce with his neighbors.

James P. Gibson, Spring Branch, Texas: My great-grandmother Helen Hasbrouck Craig was the first in my ancestral line to grow daylilies. Her daughter, my grandmother Gertrude Craig Westervelt (Grandmom Westy), took up the hobby and became a hybridizer. Gertude registered five original cultivars with the Hemerocallis Society in the 1950s. I have three of these daylilies in my garden: Texas Honey, Yellow Witch, and Quilt Patch. Each spring I get a beautiful reminder of what Helen and Grandmom Westy left me.