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

by Rushing, Felder

• ISBN13: 9781591860020
• ISBN10: 1591860024
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2003-06-19
• Publisher: Cool Springs Pr

Summary

Tough Plants for Southern Gardens is for Southern gardeners who want low care, no care, tried and true plants for their gardens. This is the book for gardeners who want plants they can plant and forget!Tough Plants for Southern Gardens is written for novice and accomplished gardeners alike, 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.Tough Plants for Southern Gardens includes 120 of the toughest plants for Southern gardens, including annuals, bulbs, perennials, shrubs and small trees, ornamental vines, and lawns. Each featured plant is noted for its ability to thrive with minimal care. Many of the selections can withstand drought, poor soils, and minimal (or no) pruning, while providing beauty and charm in the home landscape.Each selection provides specific information on the plant's use in the landscape, mature size, flowering characteristics (if applicable), varieties, soil preference, and propagation. Each chapter also contains informative essays covering topics such as: companion planting tips, pest avoidance, and handling invasive plants.

Author Biography

Felder Rushing is a 10th-generation Southern gardener whose ancestors moved from Virginia to South Carolina in the 1600s, then to Mississippi in the late 1700s. His quirky, overstuffed, low-maintenance cottage garden with its "yard art" has been featured in several books, many magazines, and newspapers, including Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Garden Design, Landscape Architecture, House and Garden, The New York Times, and others. He has studied in gardens all across North America, Europe, South America, and Africa. Felder's twice-weekly garden columns and live, call-in radio program are syndicated, and he has had hundreds of articles and photographs published in over twenty-five magazines, including Fine Gardening, National Geographic, Organic Gardening, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record. He has written or co-authored ten garden books, appears regularly on HGTV and the Discovery Channel, and lectures every year from coast to coast. He serves as contributing editor for Horticulture Magazine and Garden Design. Felder is a national director of the Garden Writers Association, serves on the board of directors of the American Horticulture Society, and recently retired after nearly twenty-five years as Mississippi's "consumer horticulturist" with the MSU Extension Service. One of his proudest moments was in 1990 when he was presented with an honorary membership in the Garden Clubs of Mississippi-of which his horticulturist great-grandmother was a charter member in 1936. Rushing, who believes that too many of his fellow horticulture experts complicate things unnecessarily, says, "We are daunted, not dumb." His lifework has been trying to make gardening as easy as it is fun.

Table of Contents

Foreword	6	(1)
Green Side Up	7	(14)
Annuals That Endure	21	(22)
Unbeatable Bulbs	43	(28)
Grasses with Gumption	71	(8)
Low-Maintenance Lawns	79	(8)
Perennials That Prevail	87	(44)
Porch Plants	131	(16)
Steadfast Shrubs	147	(40)
Stouthearted Trees	187	(20)
Vines with Vigor	207	(22)
Glossary	229	(2)
Bibliography	231	(1)
Photo Credits	231	(1)
Meet the Author	232	(1)
Index	233