old gardeners, old gardens, new books: ken druse interviews margaret roach

I had to shut up and turn the mic over to Ken, an award-winning garden author and photographer of more books than I can count or apparently write myself. And he began (jokingly) like this:

Ken: “Hello and welcome to ‘A Way to Garden. I’m your visiting host, Ken Druse. I’m the author of, as someone said, soon to be 20 books on gardening, and our guest, our special guest today is someone who is familiar to all listeners to the radio show and the podcast and visitors to Margaret Roach’s blog, ‘A Way to Garden.’ It’s Margaret Roach.”

We then went on to talk more seriously about each getting older in aging gardens; about plants we’ve lost (and miss) and ones we wish would go away; about editing the garden; about how Margaret came to garden where she does, and more, including some of your questions.

Margaret: Thank you for inviting me, Ken.

Ken: Well, full disclosure, I’ve known Margaret for more years than either of us would like to say.

Margaret: Do you have any idea how long it is? I don’t know.

Ken: What decade is this?

Margaret: Yes.

Ken: Since the … oh god, early 80’s, late 70’s, something like that.

Margaret: No, I think 80’s. O.K., cool.[Laughter.]

Ken: I was 6.

Margaret: Yes, right.

Ken: I think didn’t Grandma Marion introduce or something like that?

Margaret: I don’t know. I don’t know.

Ken: Well I have some questions and you got some listener/reader questions, and one of them is a