Heather Richie is a writer from Atlanta, GA. The younger of two sisters born to a craftsman and a real estate broker, she sails, grows flowers, and doggedly pursues a decent fly cast when no one is looking. If you ask her dad his daughter’s favorite flower, he’d still say the Daisy, but it’s long been the Strawberry Foxglove. This may be because of her favorite fruit, the strawberry (which her father would accurately identify); but in all likelihood it has more to do with blush-colored upside-down bells that make up the flower, its status as a perennial, and the term foxglove.
There’s no sense in correcting anybody about Daisies because florists don’t sell Foxgloves. They do sell Bells of Ireland, and she loves the mint family member for its similar “granny’s garden” look, along with the romanticism of such a name. She doesn’t know enough about ferns or her boyfriend to love either one as much as she does. About once a week, she thinks of a ground cover called Turkey’s Foot native to the foothills of North Georgia that surrounds her family’s cabin.
Her busy mind is obsessed with antique loafing, predicting trends in lifestyle magazines, key lime pie, honey, and a dog called Pluff Mudd. Hopelessly misguided, she is learning to duck hunt from a half-cocked Vietnam vet who keeps a hand gun on the floor board and can be credited for at once frightening and fascinating his all-to-eager pupil.