By Jeanne Hall Ashley, Millbrook

Childhood summers at Grandmother's were hot, happy days spent playing with dogs, horses, cows, pigs, chickens and cousins. The sweetest memories were of sipping nectar from honeysuckle, chomping on cold watermelon under the big oak tree, breathing in fragrant tea olive at dusk, listening to the baying of coon dogs at yet another treed animal, and helping Grandmother shell butter beans on the back porch. Ten years after she had passed away, I returned to her 1818 farmhouse, Ellerslie. Years of cousins and renters-some of whom loved to cut and move, some who practiced benign neglect-had blurred the beauty that had been.

The house foundation looked bare, while other places were choked with weeds and privet. I decided to go slowly, trying to coax old plants back while putting in new flowering trees, bushes, perennials and annuals to fill the gaps.

The huge tea olive was gone. I bought a new one that blooms so sweetly several times a year, that this spring several more have come to join it. A hedge of gardenia bushes surrounded my other grandmother's home, so four or five now ring this house. They bloom all summer, and several have as many as 50 blossoms at a time-a heady entrance to the front steps.

One of the earliest additions to the garden was columbines, the state flower of Colorado and a favorite of mine. On an historical note, my grandmother's father and son had been sent to Denver to recuperate from tuberculosis after fighting in wars nearly a century apart: the Civil War and WWII.

Impressed with the flowering trees lining graceful drives in antebellum Virginia, I added peaches, cherries and dogwood for their spring finery and a sugar maple for fall color. Carolina jasmine and "ever-blooming" pink and purple verbena were great discoveries at nurseries, but, so far, Confederate jasmine, astilbe, foxglove and delphinium have been beyond my powers.

The vegetable garden planted every year by myself and a family friend (who, at 87, still manages three herds of cows as well) proved too much for me the first year. The 75 x 125 plot packed with tomatoes, butter beans, peas, okra and corn was weeded by donkey and plow, but water had to be hauled long distances because there was no source of water nearby. The effort totally exhausted me, so now my plot is smaller, closer to the house and less ambitious. We younger folks just aren't quite as tough as the old-timers!

One of the best new/old-fashioned plants I've added is a passion flower (maypop). It seems to always be green and blooms profusely all summer long with delicate, scented purple and white flowers. It took over the fence totally, made lots of new plants, and is host to a gorgeous orange and black caterpillar dreaming of becoming a butterfly. Lavender crochet-like maypops grow wild in the pasture, but only one has survived transplanting, so far.

A happy surprise was the discovery of an antique rose from the 1840s called Souvenir de Malmaison. Planted only two years ago, it is spreading across the back fence with more than 30 full, very sweetly fragrant roses stretched along it. The Lady Banks roses that had disappeared have been replaced and they've begun to make quite a display.

While all this frenzy of planting was going on, we were also coaxing into bloom a lot of "keepers" and weeds alike before identifying what should stay. In the process, for over a year I carefully nurtured what I thought were crepe myrtle saplings from the family cemetery. I was chagrined and heart-broken when a neighbor identified my darlings as privet!

However, much to my delight, a number of lovely shrubs and trees did surface. The banana shrub off the front porch turned into a large tree that exudes the sweet smell of overripe bananas. With lots of TLC, the magnolia, ornamental peach trees, crepe myrtle, bridal wreath and various bulbs have revived, and this year were at their most magnificent. The bulbs are a story in themselves-reportedly having been brought by mule with my great-great-great grandparents from Virginia. A whole field of paper-whites lights up December, with deep purple iris and yellow daffodils following in March. And in September, delicate orange spider lilies weave their magic.

An ancient mulberry tree produces delicious cherry-tasting fruit in springtime. You can just imagine 19th century girls laughing, picking and popping them into already purple mouths!

Another "best find" was an antique rose bearing small, dark-pink clusters of blooms. It had been choked with privet and briars, but is now spreading wide and smelling like strong rosewater cologne. A year later, we found a pale pink rose blooming in the ruins of the old kitchen. As with the others it has been fed bananas, rose food and lots of water. It, too, is now thriving and reaching for the sky.

An ancient ornamental peach is a spring favorite with its four to five colors of pink blossoms perfuming the air. Also in spring, the path to the family cemetery on the grounds is delightfully lined with fragrant Kiss Me at the Gate. As you may have guessed, almost every plant I love is very sweet smelling. Last December, before the frost, the garden kept me in sensory heaven, flitting from one flower to another like a drunken bee!

To an outsider, the Ellerslie garden may look unruly: a mixture of competing colors, textures and fragrances. But to me it represents continuity and collective memories of family, friends, ancestors, kindnesses and childhood. When the gardenias are in bloom, I think of my mother's home in Texas and her mother. When the azaleas and nandina blaze with glory, my West Virginia friend, Lolly, who brought them here, is sorely missed. The newest pink climbing rose came from a good friend, Spence, in Denver, who sent it in remembrance of gallant little Zippy, the 16-year old dog we lost last February.

Small, white-flowering peach trees came from our good neighbor, Isabel, at nearby Lanark. These trees are even more special because my grandmother had given Isabel the parent trees many years ago. The columbines are always a cheerful reminder of the clear, crisp Colorado air that's so good to breathe. The rose by the old kitchen brings to mind the story of the faithful cook who hid silver from Yankee soldiers so the family wouldn't be destitute after the Civil War. Seeing the butter beans pop up, I anticipate my Aunt Gwen's vegetable dishes as only she can cook them.