Southern Home (SH): To begin, we’d love to hear one of your early memories of being in the garden.
Mario Nievera (MN): I grew up in a suburb of Chicago and had a childhood friend whose parents were from France. They had this perfect Colonial house, which I’m sure if I saw it today, it would probably be on a ¼-acre lot. It was really charming, and the backyard was almost storybook—a mess in a beautiful way. I’ll never forget sitting underneath the trees in their overgrown yard, where her mom would serve us sandwiches on pretty plates. It was like being in a secret garden, and when you’re little, you think everything is huge. And now, I happen to love France. Everything goes back to childhood in a second, doesn’t it?
My mother was a master gardener. I don’t remember her gardens as much as she always wanted to put me to work in them, whether it was mowing the grass, trimming the hedges, or cleaning up. But I
