Customer Reviews

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm not an avid gardener, and don't have a shelf full of garden books - in fact this is nearly the only one. Fortunately, it turns out to be all I needed to make my little bit of space presentable without spending lots of money and effort. Whether you'd rather not water for environmental reasons, can't spend a lot of time coping with your lawn, or just like sturdy Southern plants, this is a great book. It's also surprisingly funny! (The bulbs section starts with a sidebar entitled "Tulips Hate the South" - already found that one out, thanks.)

A short introduction covers horticulture topics at a very general level, but the primary focus is on describing a large number of no-maintenance plants that do well in the Southern climate and soils. The book is divided into sections by type of plant (perennials, shrubs, and so on); for each plant, details are given on how to plant it, how to care for it, where to put it, and what to expect from it over time. Each has a picture, usually detailed enough to allow you to identify it at a nursery. Additionally, sections begin with short lists of plants that are "Great for beginners" (extremely easy to deal with) or "Kinda tricky." Random advice, like how to successfully plant wildflowers in your lawn, is scattered throughout.

CONS (sorta): Probably not terribly informative to an experienced Southern gardener. Not a general book on horticulture. Not restricted to native plants.

We southern gardeners are often the envy of other gardeners in the country because of our long growing seasons and ability to grow a wide range of plants. However, we know that it sometimes not a walk in the park - dealing with heat, humidity, erratic weather, drought and insects is not that much fun.

The plants that thrive in our gardens have to be tough and tried and true. This book profiles plants that have been around a long time and have proven to perform reliably in the south. Annuals, Perennials, Shrubs and Trees, Porch Plants (Houseplants), Bulbs and Vines are covered here. Each section includes 10-20 major plants with detailed information on growing conditions, planting, etc.

The photos are great especially the whimsical "garden art" that is often seen in the rural south. The author also includes anecdotes about his family and people's attitudes towards gardening. This is a fun and useful book!

I am a beginning gardener, and Felder Rushing's book is helping me figure out how to replant where too much wax myrtle, Virginia creeper and palmetto have taken over my five acres. I am already using (and quoting!) the advice. An experienced gardener might not get as much from the book, but it's a fun read for anyone.
My only caveat is that some of the plants are not as suitable for Florida as for the upper south. For instance, Rushing mentions potato vine without warning deep south gardeners against air potato (Dioscorea bulbifera) and winged yam. Pretty and containable in cooler climates, they are invasive in central and south Florida; after two years, my family is still digging up potatoes and cutting down vines that infest our property.

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens Having this book around the Southern Home is kind of like having a neighbor that knows a lot about plants. A neighbor who has a beautiful yard with beautiful plants, but they don't seem to do a lot of yard work. When you ask them, they have lots of neat ideas and helpful little hints. They always know the common names for plants and when to plant them.

The book, of course, covers the South. Those of us who live here know that there's a big difference between even northern Mississippi and Alabama and southern Mississippi and Alabama. Plants that are tough sometimes need to be tough against heat, humidity, and sand, or tough against cold, dry winds. This book will tell you which plant is which and it's a good field manual to take to the nursery with you.

I moved from a shady lot in the bitter-cold North to a new house with full sun in the South. I had to re-learn nearly everthing I knew about gardening, and this book got me through. It gave me a wonderful roadmap of where to start.

The book is filled with tips on specific plants. Some of these plants are things you see in everyone's garden, but quite a few are unusual beauties. The author tries to keep things simple, such as the confounding (to me) subject of pruning roses. Information is presented in a surprisingly humorous way. Even my husband--who has zero interest in gardening--was reading it and laughing out loud.

Also, with a new baby sitting on my hip most of the day, I need low care plants. Maybe I will become a master gardener someday, but I don't foresee it happening for about eighteen years! In the meantime, I can still have a beautiful garden, with the help of this book.

Rushing's homey, humorous approach is pleasant reading and the advice is sheer gold. I have planted a number of the plants he recommends, and every one of them is flourishing brilliantly. His advice is nicely targeted; by breaking the south into upper, middle, and lower zones and by describing each individual plant's tolerances for sun and water, he allows readers from Virginia to Florida to Texas to all find just what they need in it. It's a great shove in the right direction for novice and experienced gardeners alike, as well: stop pampering fragile unadapted divas you picked up at the garden center and start making the plant's suitability to your area the first step. Look to other gardeners and local growth first, and discover the beauties that lie within it.

Don't panic, though - Rushing really knows his plants! You won't find yourself trapped in a yucca-and-aloe nightmare or confined to a dogmatically barren xeriscape. His book's excellent photos and descriptions present readers with a wide variety of beautiful plants with many different looks and qualities. Thanks to Rushing, I have a delightful little English-style cottage garden in northeast Texas, soft, pretty, and delicate-looking as you could ask, and not a single plant of it requires more care than the automatic sprinklers give the lawn once a week. And did I mention that my lawn looks better too? He's that good!

His advice on how to prepare plants and soil for transplant is golden as well. As I read, I recognized so many of my own worst mistakes in the past, and I learned how to give my new plants a much better introduction to my garden. Rushing always aims to balance effort and results, and offers a tantalizing new perspective on gardening: the more you pamper, the more you teach the plant to require pampering. Pick tough plants, do less to them, and teach them to fend for themselves. They do!

There are one or two things I wish I could add to this book. An index by light/water requirements would be one; the book is arranged by types of plants (shrub, tree, vine, etc.), and that is very good at communicating the necessity for planning a garden's structure in layers, but not very quick for finding, say, what plant would grow best in a specific location. Rushing is pretty good at identifying potentially invasive plants, but he recommends at least one - "air potato" vine - that I believe is illegal to plant in Florida. The other thing I did have to watch was the question of toxicity. He doesn't address this with most plants, and so I did end up tearing the sweet peas out when I learned that one of the symptoms of ingestion was permanent paralysis. If you've got pets or small children using the yard, do Google up some of the many excellent plant toxicity guides out there and check carefully to avoid a tragedy. And do buy this excellent book, because it's a gem!

Felder Rushing is my personal gardening guru. This book explores a vast selection of plants that are nearly unkillable, from houseplants, annuals, perennials, and tropicals. He's one of the more humorous garden writers around, to boot.

I love this book. I'm always referring back to it. I would love to find more books like it.

Felder Rushing makes gardening seem more like common sense. If you feel intimidated about growing a beautiful garden this book can change that. Simple lists of easy and hard to grow varieties of every type of plant are in here. Fun facts mingled with plant history and some really great ideas. I love this book so much I keep it on my coffee table and read through it when TV is boring- which is alot. In short, I like this book.

As a former yankee, I've struggled with southern gardening for the past ten years. This book is a terrific compilation of facts, lists, advice, pictures and humor. An easy and fun read that encourages you to write comments in the margins then gets you out the door and into the garden!