Stories About Gardening
Drizzly Memories
These gray days remind me of life and gardening in Seattle. It took me a while to realize that people do stuff in drizzle, besides read the paper and take naps. Mowing grass in the rain, raking in the rain, putting out bulbs and seed in the rain. It’s a great time to garden…. This…
Read MoreMen on DL Don’t Let Them Play with Atrazine
You know all that nice apple green rye grass that people put out this time of year? It makes your balls shrink. It’s all around the gates and entries to the Augusta National now and in banks’ lawns, golf courses and roadways. The grass itself isn’t a problem. But a chemical used on it might…
Read MoreGreat Plants but No Ghost
Primarily, the goal of my recent road trip was to complete my interview with renowned garden designer Francis Parker. She’s taught me a lot in her garden and nursery since the 80s. A while back, her husband Milton read to me a history of their 1810 home on the point. Since we realized the original…
Read MoreTalking Out of One Side of Their Mouth
Yesterday, I listened intently for some of those crazy things old men say that makes us young ones roll our eyes. With one cousin and one uncle though, I was among the old men. I thought I’d get one funny old man quote. No such luck. I did get this from an old neighbor, ““At…
Read MoreMore Than Useful Plants of the Cherokee
I spent all day yesterday in a symposium on Cherokee and the landscape. 12,000 years of history — each speaker with a focus on how Cherokee used, manipulated, cultivated and unintentionally impacted soil, water, terrain, and particularly plants. Alfie Vick, from University of Georgia and Karen Hall from Clemson were the most plant based of…
Read MoreMums, Turnips, Dirt & Writing Make Me Happy
Dr. Jim Waddick and I have never met. But he’s been a mentor in ways and he’s supplied me with some killer plants and garden connections over the past twenty years. Today, on Facebook, he asked me to explain a picture I’d posted, this picture of me and turnips — ‘Write!’ he said, ‘Explain why…
Read More“Wastage of soil…a menace to the national welfare”
My great grandfather lived in this house called Gravel Hill. He bought this failed plantation about 1890. It never really thrived, limping along as they took in boarders and sold off land till the ’70s. They grew cotton that pulls tons of minerals from the soil. After years of cotton growing, even if you fertilize…
Read MoreGardens in Charleston & Columbia
I See Dead People — Cemetery Gardening
The first place I ever collected plants was in the dump of the local cemetery. Momma and Nanna cleaned up the graves of grandparents and I pulled stuff out the trash. Mums, Azaleas, Ivy. Who’d throw all these great plants away? I never stopped. Whenever Tom and I travel, we check out the local cemetery.…
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