I have been asked how and why "A Mother's Garden" came about. Some of those that have heard the music have recognized that it is very personal and draws from feelings and thoughts that are deep in their origins.

Growing up as a boy in the beautiful rural Southern California hillside community of Orange, the piano and nature were a part of my life from my earliest memories, onward. My mother was a classical pianist and she spent countless hours at her piano. When my brothers and sisters and I were babies, she would place us beneath the piano, snuggled in our sleepers, as she played Chopin nocturnes and other timeless works — which she played to lull us to sleep. With such beginnings, how could I not fall in love with the piano? I have spent my life trying to capture the same love for the instrument that she had. My mother was also a gardener and, along with her family, her friends, and her piano, the garden was another of her great loves. In the music contained on this disc, I have tried to capture the memories of my mother and her life, and to present it in all of the beauty that she brought to those that knew and loved her. Shortly after the time came for my mother to leave this Earth, I found myself in her now-quieted home, alone, sitting at the Mason Hamlin piano that she had loved so much for so many years. As I sat at her piano, I could feel her sitting there with me, and I began to write — and in a creative burst that I have never matched at any other time in my life, I wrote the music on "A Mother's Garden." I have written a lot of original music over the years but none of what I have written has been as personal to me, as the melodies and thoughts in this recording bring back such a rich trove of recollections and emotions. I hope it brings you to your own place of cherished memories, just as it did for me as I sat at my mother’s piano composing it, looking out the window of her home at the garden she loved so much.

— Howard Cowles
Orange, California, 2009