My compulsion to garden vividly and expressively comes from Grandma Marion, who always made room for masses of marigolds and zinnias that echoed the colors of the Fiestaware on her pantry shelves. But she also handed down an appreciation for dried, pressed plants, which have a special kind of enduring beauty, faded though they may be. Two of what she called her “pressed-flower pictures” — pieces of her beloved garden arranged artfully on fabric under glass — hang in my upstairs hall. Lately, I’ve begun to feel that these mementos of a long-ago spring are trying to tell me something. So it’s no surprise that I feel a kinship with modern-day plant pressers like Linda P. J. Lipsen, the author of a new how-to guide, “Pressed Plants: Making a Herbarium.”

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Persons: Grandma Marion, I’ve, it’s, Linda P, Lipsen, ”