I’ve come to know a lot of my neighbours through their gardens. It’s how I met Josephine. It was the tiny coral petals on the Japonica Tree in Joe’s front garden that sparked our first interaction. Shortly after that, we went to see a film about Dutch landscape designer, Piet Oudolf. Over the years, we’ve talked about all kinds of things, but we always circle back to flowers. When Joe moved to a smaller, more manageable home last year she invited me to dig up whatever I wanted from her garden. I felt like I was at an anthophile’s all-you-can-eat-buffet. Of all the things we transplanted, it’s the anemones that I am most looking forward to seeing in bloom. I’d like to think that Joe is as happy that her plants are growing in our garden as we are. Joe’s garden was one the special ones, wild and whimsical, and full of surprises; peonies the size of plates, clumps of colombine, hearty hostas with gigantic, corrugated leaves and the occasional rat floating in a bucket of stinky water. Judith’s garden, a little further north, is equally enchanting. When Judith’s peonies, poppies and Irises are all in full bloom (and her red door is flung wide open to let the breeze in on her jewel of a home) it is a sight to drop-your-Metro-bags and behold. I learn so much about gardening –– about human nature –– by observing people in their gardens. There’s the lady with the dahlias; the man with the sunflowers on his roof; the family with the heavenly scented lilacs. Kate’s Crabapple Tree is the first big burst of a colour after a long, grey winter. Dave’s parrot tulips (all the way from Holland) are as flamboyant as any Met Gala dress. Alison’s spirea belong at a Sicilian wedding. Yesterday, I met Andrea whose garden is filled with roses, peonies, lilies and phlox all inherited from her mother’s and grandmother’s gardens. She has bundles of some other frilly yellow flower that neither of us could name and that she invited me to take a chunk from. “There will be rain tomorrow. Bring a digging fork.” At this rate, my garden will soon be a wonderful hodgepodge of all the gardens I have ever met.

Om Ezitouna is Tunisia’s most distinguished olive tree. Photographed by Skander Khlif.

Not long ago, and a lifetime ago, my kids were glued to me (and each other) like barnacles on a whale. Mothering three young children felt like a Sam Gilliam painting with one vivid colour bleeding into the next. We were fused together with an adhesive of bodily fluids, love and survival. Blues blurred with yellows and purples and greens to the effect of something chaotic and serene, still and wild, rich, joyful, intense and consuming. “My drape paintings are never hung the same way twice. The composition is always present, but one must let things go, be open to improvisation, spontaneity, what’s happening in a space while one works.” Mothering three older children still feels like a Sam Gilliam painting, only my perspective is shifting.