Better Southern Gardens Need All Y'all New Southerners

And new Southerners need better Southern gardens....

“We invited you here to talk about gardening, but you stood up there and used that time to push your woke agenda!”

— Name withheld. This message was sent to me in response to a slide show presentation that I gave recently.

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Presentation fees and associated book sales at symposiums comprise a small part of our business income.  We work at it and appreciate it, especially since other income comes from hard physical labor. Balance pleases. Also, I appreciated the opportunity and the platform to speak to people. But I say what I see. Sometimes, I’m critical of our flaws. Not to condemn but so that we can do better. What I see is that the garden world has a lot of flaws hidden behind the flowers. 

We need to think about shortcomings, talk about them, and hash them out so we can do better. My lectures these days ask a question: How can we make better Southern gardens? 

From my gregarious, story-telling uncles and grandfathers, I learned a few tricks that I use to ease everyone into the scene—starting out with a self-deprecating story or something with universal appeal, like chasing a stubborn donkey. Sometimes, I ask where people are from. Often, I start by sharing a branch of a plant that I’m excited about. 

For example. Before I go on, let’s talk about tiger lilies.

Who doesn’t want to talk about tiger lilies? Who doesn’t love tiger lilies? Well, it turns out some people do not. One of my snobby, 1920s garden books says ‘there are people who appreciate this form’ but suggests they are contorted fabrications likely to harbor a virus.’ Even Alice in Wonderland says the tiger lilies were loud and bossy. As the Britsh say, ‘mutton dressed up as a lamb.’

This vulgar lamb loves tawdry tiger lilies. And here’s a tip: right now is the time to plant. Tiger lilies do two things that few other lilies do. First, they make aerial bulbs all up and down the stems that you can collect and grow, and in two summers, get a bunch of more tiger lilies. Second, they grow without much of a cold period. Other liles like the cold, so you plant them in the fall. But tiger lilies only need a bit of cool soil so that you can plant them now on one of our lovely, warm March days. (FYI, our soil is about 44F now. We are shipping tiger lily bulbs this month only). They set their roots and start bulking up underground. In the heat of July, they jump up to five feet and unfurl their gaudy flowers. 

Oops. There it is again. We’re talking flowers and ding!!! A little slam.

It is so easy to grow; you see tiger lilies in homesites and cemeteries and sometimes naturalized.

It goes the same way in my presentations. I ask people to think of one of those glorified Antebellum gardens with endless pruned boxwood hedges. Most of us like the visual. But here’s my ding that some folks don’t like to hear. Those were boring copies of European gardens and they were dependent on slave labor. No one can disagree with that, but not everyone likes to hear it. 

High-toned Southern gardens excluded lots of people. I recently wrote about some of my own garden snobbery and about angel trumpets. Doing so diminishes our gardens and our lives by excluding certain plants, knowledge, and tastes. Obviously, we excluded Black people through the centuries. No one can refute that either. South Carolina once made it illegal for Black people to practice herbal medicine. How much knowledge was lost in that act alone?  How many African plants that might have thrived in our climate did we shut out? This sort of thing is probably where a comment like 'your woke agenda' comes from. But y'all, this isn't new thinking. One of my influential books, Folk Remedies of the Low Country, asked this and probably stimulated me to go to University in Zambia. Now, Black gardeners are taking the reigns to rectify our history now.

There are other examples, too, including Native people and immigrant groups. The exclusion of people we could learn from doesn’t stop with ethnic groups. It extends to social groups – white trash plants, Mexican plants, and Black people plants. I've seen so many cool little gardens behind Indian motels, but we've neglected to bring those plants and customs into mainstream gardening.

My friend Felder Rushing once explained to me that plants that are easy to share and grow fast ellicit disdain from more educated gardeners. Those fast, showy plants are favored by people who may not own their house. While growing something like a camellia takes time, commitment, land, and usually ownership.

We’ve missed opportunities that led to, as Wendell Berry writes, “hidden wounds—flaws behind the flowers.” Now, the South has people moving in from California, Maine, Mexico, and Argentina. Let’s not miss our chance to grow gardens that connect us to our land, climate, and other people.

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Join me for upcoming presentations in March:

North Carolina March 2. at Ceiner Botanical Garden.

Charleston, SC, March 16 and March 21 are separate events at Magnolia Plantation Gardens and Charleston Parks Conservancy.

Or read more of my thoughts on where we’ve been and where we should be going in my book Garden Disruptors.