I pulled off Highway 101 into the parking lot for Oswald West State Park and nosed the car into a spot pressed against thick ferns and old-growth Sitka spruce. The driver seat headrest gave an impromptu neck massage as I turned my head from one side to the other. The plop-plop-plop of water smacked against the windshield, a metronome I hadn’t realized I’d missed.

I became a gardener in Colorado because, like my mother, I like being reminded I’m stubborn. The extreme weather and temperature fluctuations and the lack of water make gardening in the Denver metro area a lesson in persistence. Several years ago, I turned my attention from food gardening to flowers. You don't eat most flowers, but they feed a different part of us; for me, it’s the part that seeks beauty in a world that can be painfully rough around the edges.

Candied Orange Peel rolled in sugar and drying before use. Image by Gwynne Middleton. Each year, about a week before Christmas, I make a...