When my moonflower seeds arrived that spring, Ruth made me an offer: “I’ll try to start them.” And lo and behold, in her peat pots, on her windowsills, moonflowers sprouted like mad. She gave me half the seedlings, and planted half herself. Hers ran wild, turning the plot beside her garden shed into a riot of white blossoms and sweet perfume. Mine … died. Almost instantly.

Amazingly, our friendship survived. But I gave up ordering moonflower seeds after that. Even $1.25 seemed too much to pay for a plant that clearly was thumbing its nose at me. Ruth, however, always orders moonflowers. Every year, she gives me seedlings. Every year, I plant them. And every year, they die.

My roses are lush and lovely. My tomatoes are toothsome. I grow glorious larkspur and lilies. This past summer, my basil plants stretched six feet high. I have nothing to prove when it comes to my garden, nothing to be ashamed of. Except this: I can’t grow moonflowers. Still, come Memorial Day, I’ll take the seedlings Ruth gives me and plant them in a prime spot, water and weed them, and wait.

Because gardeners really are optimists. We have to be. Our failures are reminders that we only have so many summers allotted to us. Sometimes drought hits. Sometimes it rains too much. Inevitably, we lose what we love. A garden is tangible proof of our defiance: Spring will follow winter. The older we grow, and the colder the world seems, the more we go on planting moonflowers, in the hope of someday standing at dusk and watching them unfurl.