The Southern Heirloom Garden

This is a really great book. I loved the essays on each plant. Greg Grant is very humorous. This is not just a coffee table book, although the pictures are beautiful. It offers advise and inspiration to those of us who will never have the "Southern Living Landscape" look.

In these days of trying the "Western grass garden" or the "English perennial border" it's particularly refreshing to study a book devoted to plants that happily grow in the Southern humidity and heat. While the opening chapters on historical gardens in the new world (French, Spanish, etc.) were interesting, the later chapters on plants were the most informative. When reading I could hear my Grandmother using the same commonplace names, like "paw-paw" and how to make jelly from the fruit. The challenge will now be to find some of these plants. (The authors admit some plants are only available from old gardens in the South). It remains one of my favorite garden books for its affectionate commentary on one of the oldest southern pastimes - our gardens and the talking and sharing of plants with loved ones.

"The Southern Heirloom Garden" is a rich and instructive work.At the start of the book, William C. Welch and Greg Grant tell us that "gardening is one of the oldest, and richest, of our Southern folk arts."The authors divide the book into two sections. The first section refreshingly explores French, German, Spanish, Native American, and African-American contributions to Southern gardening.The Spanish, for instance, intensely developed and utilized small garden spaces, while African-Americans used brightly-colored flowers in the front yard as a sign of welcome.This section also has a commendable essay on historic garden restoration in the South.The second section addresses the plants "our ancestors used to build and enrich their gardens."There are nearly 200 full-color photographs here, along with dozens of rare vintage engravings. While some of the pictures are a bit small, they are still informative.Southern gardeners and historians will particularly enjoy this fine volume.