One of the joys of working at Yale was the chance, every day, to walk through the gardens that adorned the campus and softened the impact of the university's location right in the heart of urban New Haven. It's hard for me to believe, but my gig as managing editor of the Yale Alumni Magazine ended almost eight years ago—I officially retired in July 2009—and though I continue to write for the magazine as if nothing has changed, I do so from home: no daily 140-mile round-trip commute, sometimes seven days a week, required. That's certainly a blessing, but I miss the Yale saunters and a chance to watch spring emerge. One of my favorite sights was the flowering of an exceedingly pretty little shrub called the Eastern Redbud. This member of the Pea family—you can certainly see the family ties in the flowers, which flourish before the leaves appear—is not really native to our area, but so many people have planted it that we're now included in the USDA range maps for Cercis canadensis. I have two Redbuds, both grown from seed that I took from the long, pea-resembling seedpods that C. canadensis produces in abundance. Today, along my walking route, one of them flowered for the first time. It took almost a decade of patient nurturing, but here's the newest piece of Yale in North Stonington. It's not alone. A number of Old College seeds, from Hostas to Styrax shrubs, have found a home in our soil.