It’s late May, and it’s been months since my six-year-old neighbor, Mason, has visited the garden, so when his mom stops by to drop off some misdelivered mail, I’m eager to find out where he’s been.

“Well, he’s asked about coming over, but…” Jessica hesitates, “…we didn’t want him to bother you. We know he can be a handful.”

 “Oh my gosh, are you kidding? He can come over anytime. Anytime!”

The next day, I make a point to be out watering the front garden when Mason comes home from kindergarten. He takes the bait. “Mrs. Amy!” he yells from two doors down. He runs a few steps and then freezes. “Wait—I have to ask my dad if I can come over.” He disappears inside the house, then comes right back out. “I CAN! Amy, I CAN!” He’s running towards me and he’s so excited and I feel like a rock star.

Once in the garden, he’s nonchalant. “What do you have that’s new?” he asks, scanning the beds with a discerning eye.

“I don’t know—you tell me. What haven’t you seen before?”

He searches carefully, as if he were looking at his Where’s Waldo? book. “This is new.” He points at a peachy Digitalis I got from Xera Plants called ‘Honey Trumpet’.

“Isn’t that pretty?” I say. “It’s called a foxglove.”

“Why do they call it that?”

I kneel down. “Well, because foxes like to wear the flowers on their fingers like gloves.” I poke my pinky into one of the blossoms.

“Do you mind if I have one?” he asks. I pluck off five of them and he wears them on his fingertips.

He explores some more. “What’s THIS?” He leans over to study a plant with brilliant blue flowers, a penstemon.

 “That’s called ‘Electric Blue’,” I tell him. “It’s from California.”

“I went to California one time. I flied in a plane.”

“Oh, yeah? That sounds like fun. How old were you when you did that?”

“Three or four.”

“So you were pretty little,” I say. “Do you remember it?”

“I remember my Uncle Mike. He has one thumb. He’s a carpenter.”

“Is that how he lost his thumb?”

“Yeah, he sawed it off. It was an accident.”

“I guess he couldn’t give you two thumbs up then.”

He smiles. “No, he has to go like this.” He puts one thumb up and makes a fist with the other hand. “I’m going to be a carpenter, too,” he adds.

“Oh, dear,” I say. “I hope you’ll be more careful than your Uncle Mike.”

I want to show him more flowers, but what he’s really interested in is foraging. “What do you have that’s edible?” he asks.

I don’t have many edible plants in the front garden, but I find a couple of ornamentals he can eat—a calamint and a creeping thyme. Neither tastes very good, but foraging in the garden is great fun, and he’s satisfied.

“Amy,” he announces, “when you move, we’re going to buy your house and live here.”

“Is that right? I wasn’t aware that we were moving.”

“Well, when you do, my mom and dad are buying your house.”

“OK, then.”

And then it clicks. The boy wants a garden. The boy needs a garden. I have to ask his parents if I can help him make one in their yard. I have to make this happen.

Mason decides to go home. As he’s heading out, he notices my Digitalis obscura. It’s quite different from ‘Honey Trumpet’, with smaller, rosier flowers and a more compact habit, but Mason has the gardener’s eye, and he recognizes the resemblance. “Fox toes,” he says with authority, and heads home.

***

I’m in the front garden a couple days later when Mason pulls up on his bike. He’s wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles helmet, an orange t-shirt with a robot on it, and a blue Gatorade mustache.

“Mason! How are you?” I say.

“Good.”

“How was school today?”

“Good.”

“What did you learn about?”

“We counted to ten in Spanish. Can you count to ten in Spanish?”

I pretend to struggle. “Um… uno…?”

He gives me a pitying look. “Unodostrescuatrocincoseissieteochonuevediez.”

“Wow! That’s impressive!” I say. (Actually, his pronunciation is spot-on.) “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“No.”

When Mason arrives, I’m working on the main pathway in my garden, and, honestly, it’s kind of a mess. I’ve laid out the pavers to see how they’ll look and am just starting to straighten them up.

“What’s this string for?” he asks.

“It’s to help me get my pavers straight.”

“Well,” he says, eyeing my wonky lines, “these ones aren’t very straight.” He inspects the end near the porch. “And these ones aren’t straight at all!”

“Sorry, boss,” I say, averting my eyes from my shoddy workmanship.

He squats and scoops gravel into a bucket with a trowel. “Amy, if I tell you something, will you believe me?” he asks.

“Probably. What is it?”

“My favorite show is This Old House.”

Sounds about right. What kid doesn’t want to learn how to refinish a deck, or know how to install crown molding?

“Did you learn to garden from This Old House?” he asks.

“No,” I say, “but maybe I should have.”

Mason revisits my ‘Electric Blue’ penstemon and samples the two edible plants we’ve established are safe to eat. Then he checks for new plants. He sees a blank space where I’ve removed an underperformer. “You need to plant something here,” he says. “And here and here and here!”

“You have a lot of really good ideas,” I tell him. “You know what? I think you need your own garden.” (I have gotten the OK from his parents.) “What would you say if I helped you make a garden in your own yard?”

From the look on his face, I’m guessing he’s never considered this possibility, but the urge to grow things has certainly been calling to him.

“Yeah!” he says.

“I put a seed catalog in your mailbox today. I thought it might help you decide what you want to grow. Did you get it?”

“I saw that, but…” He looks confused. “That was for me?”

“Yep.”

“Wait—.” Without saying goodbye, he jumps on his bike and goes home.

I go in the house, and some minutes later I hear a knock at the door. “Amy, can you come out and talk about this?” He’s holding the seed catalog. It’s the big Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog, and it looks like a phonebook in his arms.

We sit on the stoop and flip through it. Everything looks delicious in the glossy photos, but Mason is not fooled. “How about asparagus?” I say. “Do you like asparagus?”

“Not one bit.”

I laugh. “I guess it’s an acquired taste. Most kids don’t like asparagus.”

“Well, I’m one of those most kids.” He also informs me that squash is his “worst nightmare.” On the whole, however, Mason is not a fussy kid, and we find a lot that looks promising. He’s down with beans, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, and “pickles,” and he wants his own ‘Electric Blue’ as well. He gets up to go tell his parents the good news.

“Ciao,” I say.

“Adios,” he answers.