Collecting ripening fruit from all sorts of naturalized plants was a tradition in our family. My dad-Mr. Carl-had identified numerous sites on public land where strawberries, blackberries, huckleberries, pawpaws, persimmons, and apples could be harvested in season. The objective was to pick these fruits at the peak of flavor and dry, can, preserve, juice, or freeze them for use over the next year. Of course, we always ate a few out of hand as well. The locations of some particularly special fruit-bearing plants were never revealed to us, however; Dad seemed to consider these sites his own secret gardens.

My two brothers turned out to be very sensitive to the bites of chiggers and ticks that were prevalent in these fields-and allergic to poison ivy-which eventually curtailed their fruit picking and other gardening activities. Becoming a horticulturist was clearly my destiny, though, because I was never bothered by those problems.

Dad would have particularly enjoyed this issue of The American Gardener because articles by Lee Reich ("Natives for the Edible Landscape"), David Cavagnaro ("Amaranths"), and Nancy McDonald ("Flavorful Flower Beds") all focus on growing edible plants, including some of the wild fruits we harvested in my youth. And for those of us who live in urban areas and have few opportunities for picking wild fruits, growing them at home is the best alternative.

Mr. Carl did grow vegetables and fruits at our home, but he restricted these plants to the side or back yard, leaving me the front yard for a colorful flower garden. The heat-tolerant plants described in John Bryan's article on summer-flowering bulbs would have helped me fill the color void between the last of the spring-blooming flowers and the start of fall-flowering species. With droughts and hot weather predicted again this summer for many parts of North America, the ongoing process of assigning AHS Plant-Heat Zone codes to plants will help all gardeners make good choices for heat tolerance.

Our Millennium Focus section, a collaboration between Rick Lewandowski and John Creech, looks ahead to the challenges facing American plant explorers in the 21st century. There are prime locations and important plant genera that need to be explored before much more diversity is lost. Nationalism, conservation ethics, and international legislation are greatly affecting the way plant collecting is done. When you add the potential for patenting genes from specific plants, the complexities ahead are daunting.

No matter what your particular interest is in plants, you can rely on The American Gardener to keep you abreast of the latest developments and research in gardening.

Yours in green,