Potted and Pruned

Potted and Pruned: Living a Gardening Life
by Carol Michel


Blurb:

Carol Michel, author of the award-winning blog May Dreams Gardens, has penned a delightful book of gardening stories recounting her years speed weeding, scolding plants for their poor manners, experiencing the magic of a clover lawn, searching for elusive "rare in cultivation" plants, narrowly avoiding tussles in the garden center, formally evicting drought from her garden, and offering advice for those new to gardening. 

Is it possible to be utterly charming and wickedly funny at the same time? Yes, and avid gardeners will find themselves nodding along and laughing out loud as they turn the pages, recognizing their own quirks reflected back to them in Michel's words. Whether it's the chapter about the four phases of houseplant care or the gardener's unique interpretations of time, measurements, and quantities, one can't help but point and say, "That's me!" and then read a snippet or paragraph aloud to one's friend or significant other. 

Through 36 light-hearted essays, readers are treated to a glimpse behind the gate at May Dreams Gardens and the philosophies and musings of its caretaker. There's take-home wisdom for gardeners new and experienced between the pages.

My Reaction:
This isn't primarily a book of gardening advice and instruction (though there are some useful tips, here and there), but rather a friendly conversation from one gardener to another about the highs and lows of coaxing plants to grow where we want them. Anyone who gardens and spends a fair amount of time thinking, talking, or day-dreaming about gardening will recognize him- or herself in these essays. It's an inside joke. It's vegetable soup for the gardener's soul.

Certain essays appealed to me more than others, of course, and I wish the book had been longer-- but the good news is that if you enjoy these essays, the author has a gardening blog with a whole blog archive to read through.


Random Tidbits:
--"Now the idea of completely getting rid of the ditch lilies in my garden, as much of a nuisance as they are, seems to me like getting rid of a cherished family memory. So I keep them and contain them as best I can."

I think most of us who grow orange daylilies feel pretty much like that about them... They're more family mementos than plants!

--"The vegetable garden also tells stories of family gatherings where okra and eggplant picked that same day were then battered and fried and served at suppertime. When I'm out in my vegetable garden, I still hear the congenial arguments among my uncles about whether tomatoes should be sugared or salted."

--"I begin flinging mulch from one bed to another and hope by some miracle it will actually cause now full-grown weeds to wither and die while the plants I planted will flourish.  Since this is rarely the case, I drag out a variety of weeding tools and begin the battle."

...That sounds (all too) familiar!

--"However, every gardener knows or soon learns that stolen seeds, cuttings, or even plants will not grow in the thief's garden."

That's funny, because I've heard the exact opposite-- namely, that "stolen" seeds and cuttings grow best. It's probably related to the belief that you shouldn't say "thank you" when someone gives you a plant or a cutting, because if you do, the plant won't grow. That said, I wouldn't dream of stealing plants from a private garden-- or even taking cuttings without permission.  Plants that have clearly been abandoned or thrown away, on the other hand, seem like "fair game" (though of course it depends on the circumstances).

--"Then one day, it happens. Motivation disappears. It's hot. There are mosquitoes. Motivation doesn't like heat and mosquitoes. Motivation gets discouraged, too, because not everything turned out as we thought it would. Motivation likes pretty flowers, but runs and hides at the sight of weeds."

--"Every gardener, at some point, should learn when it is appropriate to scream in the garden and when it is better to cuss."

--This book taught me about the Pomodoro Technique (not sure I'll use it, but it's interesting).

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens: Low Care, No Care, Tried and True Winners
by Felder Rushing



Blurb:

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens is written for novice and accomplished gardener alike, and for all gardeners who value their leisure time. They also value the appearance of their home and appreciate the benefits of well-placed landscaping; however, they do not want to devote too much time to keeping it beautiful.

My Reaction:
As someone who only began to take her garden seriously within the past few years, I still have a lot to learn-- but one thing I picked up pretty quickly is that some plants are much easier to keep alive than others, and gardening is much more enjoyable when the bulk of your garden is made up of these "easy plants".  I've also learned to value the wisdom and experience of those who garden in my own part of the world, so I try to get my information from as local a source as possible.  As the title suggests, the focus of this book is tough plants ("easy plants") for the southern United States-- perfect (for me, a relatively lazy gardener who lives in Alabama)!

This doesn't have to be a cover-to-cover read, though it can be.  It's thoroughly readable-- somewhat less chatty and informal than Passalong Plants (also co-authored by Felder Rushing), but more useful for quick reference.  It's great for dipping into for a few minutes here and there, and the index makes it simple to find a specific plant right away.

Divided into sections of types of plants, this book covers everything from fool-proof annuals and dependable perennials to easy-care trees and shrubs (and everything in between, as the saying goes).

Each plant was selected on the basis of its "toughness" and suitability for the Southern garden.  Most featured plants get one full page including a photo, common name, Latin name, sunlight requirement, description of the flower (if applicable) and plant as a whole, soil/water needs, best propagation method(s), and "interesting kinds", which suggests specific, named varieties or cultivars (helpful for narrowing the field when making a wish list).  There's also a small snippet of chit-chat about each plant, as well as one "tip" per entry-- some are about that plant, others are more tangentially related, but all are either informative or entertaining.

At the beginning of each section, there's a list of plants that are "Best for Beginners" and another that can be "Kinda Tricky" (probably self-explanatory).  Then at the end of each section, there's a page or three of short blurbs about "Other Good Grasses" or "Other Great Garden Bulbs"-- plants that didn't quite make the "best of" list (for whatever reason), but which are also promising candidates for the Southern garden.

As much as I like this book, I do have one quibble.  "The South" is a large area covering several states and USDA hardiness zones.  The region is frequently divided into four gardening sub-regions: Upper South, Middle South, Lower South, and Coastal South-- and that's not even including the Tropical South, which is mostly confined to southern Florida.

The Upper South gets more of a real winter than the Coastal South (where I live), which means its gardeners can successfully grow plants (some bulbs and fruits, for instance) that need a little winter chill.  Those same plants don't perform well this far south.  On the other hand, I can grow delicate, subtropical plants outdoors.  They may die back to the ground, but they reliably return with spring.  Someone growing them on the northern edge of "the South" will have to dig them up every year or grow them in containers that can be moved into shelter for the winter.

Now, it is just a quibble, but just because a plant is included in this book doesn't mean it will be ideal for your garden.  A little further research might be in order before you start your plant wish list, just to be on the safe side.  (Besides, isn't researching plants part of the fun?).  You may have a Southern garden, and the plant in question may be "tough" in some Southern gardens, but there's still the potential for plant failure and disappointment.  Of course, you don't need to compare regions to witness the fickleness of Mother Nature's green children.  Your next-door neighbor may rave about a plant that refuses to "do" for you.

To be fair, the author acknowledges all this, right there in the beginning!  In gardening, there are no guarantees, even with so-called tough plants, but this book does give you a good shot at success, and I do believe that by far most of these plants will perform well through most of the region.  I whole-heartedly recommend it-- particularly to beginning gardeners or anyone who's interested in learning more about plants that really want to grow in the hot and humid South.

Passalong Plants

Passalong Plants
by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing

Blurb (from back of book):

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 piece 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.

My Reaction:
This book was a Christmas gift from my parents-- something I'd added to a wishlist because the description sounded promising.  I don't often read non-fiction cover-to-cover, but if you're a Southern gardener with a soft spot for old-fashioned, traditional, "hand-me-down" plants, this book is well worth a look.  It's only within the past few years that I've only gotten more seriously interested in gardening, and I'm in the process of building my garden from scratch, so the subject-- plants that have historically done very well in this part of the world-- holds a lot of personal interest for me.

The book was published in 1993, and though (I think) the edition I have (paperback) was printed in the early 2000s, it doesn't seem that the text has been updated from the original '93 version.  Difficult as it is to believe, it's been over 20 years since 1993, and as I read, there were a few times when I wondered if the authors would change anything, given a chance at a rewrite.  One or two plants that they thought rare or underused in '93 strike me (in early 2016) as being fairly commonplace-- certainly not that unusual, based on what I've seen and read in the blogs of fellow gardeners around the world.  However, the book has aged very well, over all-- not surprising, considering that the subject is heirloom plants, some of which have been passed along for hundreds of years!

When it comes to recommending plants, you can only be so objective, so there are occasional plants that the authors treat favorably, but which I find to be undesirable weeds-- and on the other hand, there are plants that they seem a bit less excited about that I really enjoy.  But that's only to be expected, since no two people ever agree on everything (in a garden or out of it).  Possibly it's a reflection of the fact that I live further south than either of them (and some plants might go a little crazier along the Gulf Coast than they do where the authors live, in more central Alabama and Mississippi).  Maybe, too, some things have changed in the last twenty years...

Perhaps the biggest change to come along in the past 20 years is the explosion of the Internet.  When this book was published, it was difficult to locate sources for many of these old-fashioned passalongs.  Therefore, the carefully cultivated list of nurseries that sold each one was probably an invaluable tool for someone set on growing an impossible-to-find-locally plant.  These days, it's so much easier to search out rare plants and order them online-- not to mention the possibility of doing plant swaps with people you've met online.  (Personally, I'm still a little scared of ordering plants online-- but if there's no other option and you're desperate for a particular plant...)

I heartily recommend the book to Southern gardeners with an interest in plants that have proven to do well in the South-- plants with a sense of history and place, including many that you'll probably remember from the gardens you grew up in.  It's written in a casual, conversational style that makes for easy, enjoyable reading, but there's also plenty of information, including helpful hints about propagation methods and where each plant performs best.

Many of the plant descriptions are accompanied by color photographs, but some are not, so one of these days, I intend to page through the book again, look up the ones I didn't recognize by name, and make a wish list of the most exciting candidates for my own garden.  And I'll be keeping the book for a handy reference (the index makes it simple to locate a particular plant's entry).