Passalongs are plants that have survived in gardens for decades by being handed from one person to another. These botanical heirlooms, such as flowering almond, blackberry lily, and night-blooming cereus, usually can't be found in neighborhood garden centers; about the only way to obtain a passalong plant is to beg a cutting from the fortunate gardener who has one. In this lively and sometimes irreverent book (don't miss the chapter on yard art), Steve Bender and Felder Rushing describe 117 such plants, giving particulars on hardiness, size, uses in the garden, and horticultural requirements. They present this information in the informal, chatty, and sometimes humorous manner that your next-door neighbor might use when giving you a cutting of her treasured Confederate rose. And, of course, because they are discussing passalong plants, they note the best method of sharing each plant with other gardeners. Because you might not spy a banana shrub or sweet pea in your neighborhood, the authors list mail-order sources for the heirloom plants described. They also give tips on how to organize your own plant swap. Although the authors live in and write about the South, many of the plants they discuss will grow elsewhere. from the book Amid the clamor of press releases touting the newest, improved versions of this bulb or that perennial, what keeps people interested in old-fashioned plants? Nostalgia, for one thing. It's hard not to feel a special fondness for that Confederate rose, night-blooming cereus, or alstroemeria lovingly tended by your grandmother when you were a child. Such heirloom plants evoke memories of your first garden, of relatives and neighbors that have since passed on, of prized bushes you accidentally annihilated with your bicycle. Recall the time you first received a particular plant, and you'll recall the person who gave it to you. |Frederick Douglass was unquestionably the foremost black American of the nineteenth century. The extraordinary life of this former slave turned abolitionist orator, newspaper editor, social reformer, race leader, and Republican party advocate has inspire

In "Gardening Southern Style," Rushing's down-home manner and his practical philosophy that urges a harmony with nature and the value of local resources for solutions have made him a household name in his region. Whether it's trouble with "southern blight," noxious weeds, nematodes, or aphids, or sage advice about what, how, and when to plant--when question arise about problems or maladies in the garden, many immediately say, "I'll ask Felder "

Having lived in Texas, Virginia, and Mississippi, Rushing is a horticulturist whose knowledge is linked to the Magnolia Zone, a region shaped, he says, somewhat like a sweet potato, with Austin on the western border and Shreveport, Jackson, Montgomery, and Richmond on the east. Gardens just a few miles north of the Gulf Coast, from Houston to Pensacola, fall within this zone.

Rushing focuses each chapter on one aspect of gardening south of the Mason-Dixon Line: Planning the Successful Landscape, Choosing and Caring for Trees and Shrubs, The Well-Kept Lawn, Fruit in the Landscape, Vegetables Year Round, Annuals, and Perennials Indoors and Out, and Southern Gardening Month by Month.