Passalong Plants
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.
"1103790664"
Passalong Plants
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.
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Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807844182
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 11/30/1993
Edition description: 1
Pages: 236
Sales rank: 546,045
Product dimensions: 8.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Steve Bender is a senior writer for Southern Living and a contributor to several books on southern gardening. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama.

Felder Rushing is a seventh-generation Mississippi gardener, an author and columnist, and host of radio and television gardening programs. He lives in Jackson, Mississippi.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Allen Lacy ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: What you need to know about this book 1
Chapter 1. Smells for the Sidetrack: Those childhood plants we treasure for their sweet fragrance 5
Chapter 2. The Plants That Get Away: Rampant plants that will pass themselves along if we don't get around to it 23
Chapter 3. Aunt Bea's Pickles: Passalong plants that friends insist on giving you, whether you want them or not 61
Chapter 4. Weirdisms, Oddities, and Conversation Pieces: Plants noted for certain strange features, like many of the people who own them 105
Chapter 5. Gaudy or Tacky?: A celebration of garish plants that show your good taste 139
Chapter 6. In the Bare-Root Bin at the Plant-O-Rama: Some not-so-hard-to-find passalongs sold by the bundle each spring at your friendly, one-stop garden shop 171
Chapter 7. Well, I Think It's Pretty: An exploration of passalong gardeners' fascination with fine yard art, including pink flamingos, goose windmills, plastic flowers, and milk of magnesia trees 195
Chapter 8. Organizing Your Own Plant Swap: How to get a passalong club started in your town 209
Mail-Order Sources for Passalong Plants 213
Bibliography 217
Index 219

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

The perfect marriage of two noble traditions: southern storytelling and a gardener's love for sharing plants.—American Horticulturist



Each plant in Passalong Plants is accurately described in the intimate language of front porch talk, and the authors always tell you how to grow it—whether by seed or cutting or division.—New York Times Book Review



All readers who appreciate fertile ground wherever they find it will be hard-pressed not to laugh out loud as Bender and Rushing hold forth. Be sure to scribe your name in your copy as soon as you get it, because this book will 'passalong' among friends faster than weeds sprout.—Fine Gardening



An entertaining and insightful ode to the fragrance, color, and history of old-fashioned plants and the people who love them. . . . The authors' writing ranges from reflective to laugh-out-loud funny, making this book an enjoyable, easy read. Once you've picked it up, you'll want to pass it along to you favorite gardener.—Southern Living



Rushing and Bender are storytellers in the great Southern tradition, and expert gardeners, too. Best of all, they are wonderfully amusing companions for the trip on which they invite us: a tour of traditional Southern garden plants.—Horticulture



You can define Passalong Plants with one word: fun. . . . This book is worth passing along to those people close to you.—Southern Living



A compendium of backyard wisdom and sound horticultural advice—liberally sprinkled with down-home humor—that should inspire gardeners everywhere to embrace this botanical form of hospitality.—Mid-Atlantic Country



A nostalgic, sweetly evocative book about real people who garden below the Mason-Dixon line, and of the friendships that blossom among folks who share flowers.—San Francisco Examiner



The heart of southern gardening is not in its great plantations, but in the small-to-middle-sized yards of working people. And its soul is not in the fancy plants sold by mass marketers, but in traditional plants, passed along from mothers to daughters and friends to friends. Bender and Rushing breathe life, love, and joy into that fundamental truth, while having a ball with its eccentricities and idiosyncrasies.—Jim Wilson, co-host of 'The Victory Garden'

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