Portfolio > Still At It

Charles Smith (78)
Landscape designer, head of the Jens Jensen Gardens organization; member of Evanston's Preservation Commission

I am still gardening because I never stopped gardening. I guess that makes me a gardener. When I was 9 or 10, my parents went to church for an all-day event. When they returned, I had dug up and relocated every shrub and plant in the back yard. I can look back and recognize an unbroken thread that runs through my life. I have embraced it because that’s who I am.

It’s a small quiet place I can go to, even when there were other demands for my time and attention. This need, this vocation may not give me fame or riches but always given me peace and beauty.