Felder Rushing - Maverick Gardeners: Dr. Dirt and Other Determined Independent Gardeners

Dr. Dirt and Other Determined Independent Gardeners

Felder Rushing

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.

www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of University Presses.

Copyright 2021 by Felder Rushing

All rights reserved

Manufactured in Korea

All photographs are courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted.

First printing 2021

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

LCCN 2020042497

ISBN 9781496832214 (hardback)

ISBN 9781496832719 (trade paperback)

ISBN 9781496832726 (epub single)

ISBN 9781496832733 (epub institutional)

ISBN 9781496832740 (pdf single)

ISBN 9781496832757 (pdf institutional)

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

This book is for self-reliant people worldwide
who lovingly tend personally meaningful gardens
for the joy of itespecially those who feel isolated
because they are okay with coloring outside the lines.

I deeply appreciate each of the gardening friends who have encouraged me, by example and usually with good humor.

There were the four generations of family gardening women who raised me in their disparate gardens (more on them later); Im still sharing some of their plants and wisdom, including with my own daughter, Zoe.

I am very lucky to have friends scattered across the country who, like me, are conflicted horticulturists and journalists grappling with ways to reach our audiences with a balance between exacting science and the less precise, corner-cutting make-do approach followed blissfully by garden variety gardeners.

Most of us tease, torment, and yet encourage one another in our struggles. I started to list a few, but got bogged down in sweet memories, and the list got too long. You know who you are, and most of you know one another.

But I must give a long-overdue memorial nod to Flora McQuirter, who gardened by herself with her dogs along the Sunflower River that winds slowly through the heart of the Mississippi Delta. When Miss Flora occasionally came to town to get supplies, she would stop by the garden center where I worked as a teenager and give me cuttings of unusual plants from her garden to share with others. Flora, who casually cussed a lot, was the first crazy cat lady gardener in my life.

Special shout-outs go to the Cottage Garden Society of England and PlantSwap UK for their collective centuries of insights, and to Janice Watkins, the retired Flora, Mississippi, librarian who in 1990 mixed dozens of diverse independent gardeners and countless precious plants into what is now the longest-running plant swap in the known universe.

This book is dedicated to all these and more, along with the folks at University Press of Mississippi who fervently believe in the merits of bringing stuff like whats in this book to light.

And finally, I am grateful to Susan, who nudged and tweaked this book from being a mish-mash rave of dry observations into a sweet waltz.

Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy
William Wordsworth

Maverick
GARDENERS

There is no such thing as a weird human being. Its just that some people require more understanding than others.

Tom Robbins

Somebody told me I ought to write a book about the quirky odd sock garden extemporizers I lovingly portray in my lectures. A book featuring those rarely celebrated real people who weave and wobble a precarious line between sanity and letting go is long overdue.