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Passalong Plants
Passalongs are plants that have survived in gardens for decades by being handed from one person to another. These botanical heirlooms, such as flowering almond, blackberry lily, and night-blooming cereus, usually can't be found in neighborhood garden centers; about the only way to obtain a passalong plant is to beg a cutting from the fortunate gardener who has one.
In this lively and sometimes irreverent book (don't miss the chapter on yard art), Steve Bender and Felder Rushing describe 117 such plants, giving particulars on hardiness, size, uses in the garden, and horticultural requirements. They present this information in the informal, chatty, and sometimes humorous manner that your next-door neighbor might use when giving you a cutting of her treasured Confederate rose. And, of course, because they are discussing passalong plants, they note the best method of sharing each plant with other gardeners.
Because you might not spy a banana shrub or sweet pea in your neighborhood, the authors list mail-order sources for the heirloom plants described. They also give tips on how to organize your own plant swap. Although the authors live in and write about the South, many of the plants they discuss will grow elsewhere.
In this lively and sometimes irreverent book (don't miss the chapter on yard art), Steve Bender and Felder Rushing describe 117 such plants, giving particulars on hardiness, size, uses in the garden, and horticultural requirements. They present this information in the informal, chatty, and sometimes humorous manner that your next-door neighbor might use when giving you a cutting of her treasured Confederate rose. And, of course, because they are discussing passalong plants, they note the best method of sharing each plant with other gardeners.
Because you might not spy a banana shrub or sweet pea in your neighborhood, the authors list mail-order sources for the heirloom plants described. They also give tips on how to organize your own plant swap. Although the authors live in and write about the South, many of the plants they discuss will grow elsewhere.
236 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 18, 2008
Gardeners love to share stories and swap plants. When we find a plant the fills a spot just right or gives off a heavenly scent or thrives in less-than-ideal conditions, we want to share it. When we have a plant whose blooms remind us of spring or special events (such as our weddings or graduation days), we want to share it. We want to share our best memories with our family, friends, and neighbors, and what better way to do that than with a living, growing passalong plant?
More than any other plants, passalongs are often tied to a memory, feeling, or event. In Passalong Plants Felder Rushing and Steve Bender offer their readers a collection of not only valuable plant information, but also of the many stories and memories these plants help us recall and share again.
More than any other plants, passalongs are often tied to a memory, feeling, or event. In Passalong Plants Felder Rushing and Steve Bender offer their readers a collection of not only valuable plant information, but also of the many stories and memories these plants help us recall and share again.
November 11, 2024
This is fun and humorous read for the lover of plants, novice or advanced. If you like plants and are not bothered by the now somewhat aged information available, find a used copy and enjoy. If you’d like to use it as a guide for finding useful plants for your garden , please read on, as there are a few important issues to consider with some of the plants selections. Here ends the light and fun review.
Here begins the critical review as an individual with a degree in horticulture and an interest in reducing the further introduction of potentially invasive species into our area (southeastern United States).
My apologies and yet my full respects to the authors, who wrote a humorous and fun book, and I am writing a somewhat critical and much belated critique.
First the positives, each plant comes alive with a story, a piece of history or snippet of personal experience about how a much-beloved plant was first encountered.
Scientific and common names are provided along with growing conditions, size, growth rate, hardiness zones, origin, and purchase location (mail order). The majority of plants that are discussed are hardy in USDA zones 7 or greater, making many of these offerings unsuitable for northern gardens without special care for overwintering.
Historical notes:
This was published in 1993 and since publication, our growing zones have shifted making more of these plants available to grow somewhat further north of the growing zones indicated.
Many plants that were seen as rare at the time of printing have once again become popular. In addition, as taxonomists are keen to do, there have been some changes to nomenclature since the book was printed.
Mail order sources have not been confirmed, some may no longer be in business.
The one downside to this book, other than some slightly dated material which is to be considered expected, are the inclusion of many species that are now considered invasive, and this is the only reason for 4 stars rather than 5 for this review. At the time of publication, invasive species were not a regular topic of discussion and all the plants discussed in the book have been in this country for decades if not centuries, so including them made sense at the time.
That said, here are some of the potentially invasive plants that are included: Arundo donax or Giant Reed, Butterfly Bush, Hibiscus syriacus (Rose of Sharon), Honeysuckle ( Lonicera sp.), Kudzu, Nandina, Perilla, Poncirus/Citrus trifoliate, and the Princess Tree, and Tallow Tree. All of these can be useful, sweet smelling or gorgeous plants, but can have unintended impacts when they escape our manicured spaces. Please know how to control them, consult your local or state agencies/ag center before planting these non-natives, or consider planting native alternatives.
Here begins the critical review as an individual with a degree in horticulture and an interest in reducing the further introduction of potentially invasive species into our area (southeastern United States).
My apologies and yet my full respects to the authors, who wrote a humorous and fun book, and I am writing a somewhat critical and much belated critique.
First the positives, each plant comes alive with a story, a piece of history or snippet of personal experience about how a much-beloved plant was first encountered.
Scientific and common names are provided along with growing conditions, size, growth rate, hardiness zones, origin, and purchase location (mail order). The majority of plants that are discussed are hardy in USDA zones 7 or greater, making many of these offerings unsuitable for northern gardens without special care for overwintering.
Historical notes:
This was published in 1993 and since publication, our growing zones have shifted making more of these plants available to grow somewhat further north of the growing zones indicated.
Many plants that were seen as rare at the time of printing have once again become popular. In addition, as taxonomists are keen to do, there have been some changes to nomenclature since the book was printed.
Mail order sources have not been confirmed, some may no longer be in business.
The one downside to this book, other than some slightly dated material which is to be considered expected, are the inclusion of many species that are now considered invasive, and this is the only reason for 4 stars rather than 5 for this review. At the time of publication, invasive species were not a regular topic of discussion and all the plants discussed in the book have been in this country for decades if not centuries, so including them made sense at the time.
That said, here are some of the potentially invasive plants that are included: Arundo donax or Giant Reed, Butterfly Bush, Hibiscus syriacus (Rose of Sharon), Honeysuckle ( Lonicera sp.), Kudzu, Nandina, Perilla, Poncirus/Citrus trifoliate, and the Princess Tree, and Tallow Tree. All of these can be useful, sweet smelling or gorgeous plants, but can have unintended impacts when they escape our manicured spaces. Please know how to control them, consult your local or state agencies/ag center before planting these non-natives, or consider planting native alternatives.
August 24, 2017
The first thing I demand from a gardening book is good writing. Perhaps it sounds strange that great illustrations/photographs are only the second thing I look for, but add those to wonderful writing, and a book becomes one I dip into for years to come. Passalong Plants, co-written by longtime Southern Living gardening editor Steve Bender and the guru of the slow gardening movement, Felder Rushing, meets both criteria.
Sure, the writing is a little folksier (and sometimes unabashedly politically incorrect), but it vibrates with the voices of the writers. Writing alternately (and part of the fun is figuring out whether a particular section was written by Bender or Rushing), they describe scores of ornamental plants that abound in old-fashioned southern gardens, but may be difficult to locate through commercial sources. Luckily, they list mail-order sources, and in fact, since the book’s publication in 1993, far more are available even from walk-in nurseries.
Given that a major reason plants become passalongs is their ease of propagation. I was relieved that Bender and Rushing don’t look down on the favorite propagation method of this not always energetic gardener – rooting cuttings in water. And to learn how many plants I haven’t yet tried water-rooting on are more than amenable to the tactic. (Hold on a minute while I dash out back to grab the few remaining stems of white datura that survived last winter’s first surprisingly hard freeze and stick them in the nearest glass jar I can find. But not a jar I’ll use for putting up jelly – all parts of the beautiful, fragrant-flowered datura are toxic!)
I occasionally shuddered at Passalong Plants’ paeans to plants that have become horribly invasive in mild-climate areas: Chinese tallow tree, sweet autumn clematis, loosestrife, Chinaberry tree. At least they come with warnings about their rampant natures.
Add plenty of gorgeous photos taken by the gardeners themselves and a foreword by another favorite gardening author, the late Allen Lacey, and I’ll be searching for a copy of Passalong Plants to add to my gardening bookshelves.
Sure, the writing is a little folksier (and sometimes unabashedly politically incorrect), but it vibrates with the voices of the writers. Writing alternately (and part of the fun is figuring out whether a particular section was written by Bender or Rushing), they describe scores of ornamental plants that abound in old-fashioned southern gardens, but may be difficult to locate through commercial sources. Luckily, they list mail-order sources, and in fact, since the book’s publication in 1993, far more are available even from walk-in nurseries.
Given that a major reason plants become passalongs is their ease of propagation. I was relieved that Bender and Rushing don’t look down on the favorite propagation method of this not always energetic gardener – rooting cuttings in water. And to learn how many plants I haven’t yet tried water-rooting on are more than amenable to the tactic. (Hold on a minute while I dash out back to grab the few remaining stems of white datura that survived last winter’s first surprisingly hard freeze and stick them in the nearest glass jar I can find. But not a jar I’ll use for putting up jelly – all parts of the beautiful, fragrant-flowered datura are toxic!)
I occasionally shuddered at Passalong Plants’ paeans to plants that have become horribly invasive in mild-climate areas: Chinese tallow tree, sweet autumn clematis, loosestrife, Chinaberry tree. At least they come with warnings about their rampant natures.
Add plenty of gorgeous photos taken by the gardeners themselves and a foreword by another favorite gardening author, the late Allen Lacey, and I’ll be searching for a copy of Passalong Plants to add to my gardening bookshelves.
July 5, 2021
I loved this book decades ago but passed it along to a friend… I had to rebuy it now that I’m beginning a new garden and I’m receiving plants from a very kind and generous new friend. Every page brings back gorgeous memories from my old (90s) garden in GA. 💗 🌺
November 29, 2020
Loved it great advice
February 7, 2016
This book was a Christmas gift from my parents-- something I'd added to a wishlist because the description sounded promising. I don't often read non-fiction cover-to-cover, but this one was pleasantly readable. Particularly if you're a Southern gardener with a soft spot for old-fashioned, traditional, "hand-me-down" plants, this book is well worth a look. It's only within the past few years that I've gotten more seriously interested in gardening, and I'm in the process of building my garden from scratch, so the subject-- plants that have historically done very well in this part of the world-- holds a lot of personal interest for me.
The book was published in 1993, and though (I think) the edition I have (paperback) was printed in the early 2000s, it doesn't seem that the text has been updated from the original '93 version. Difficult as it is to believe, it's been over 20 years since 1993, and as I read, there were a few times when I wondered if the authors would change anything, given a chance at a rewrite. One or two plants that they thought rare or underused in '93 strike me (in early 2016) as being fairly commonplace-- certainly not that unusual, based on what I've seen and read in the blogs of fellow gardeners around the world. However, the book has aged very well, over all-- not surprising, considering that the subject is heirloom plants, some of which have been passed along for hundreds of years!
When it comes to recommending plants, you can only be so objective, so there are occasional plants that the authors treat favorably, but which I find to be undesirable weeds-- and on the other hand, there are plants that they seem a bit less excited about that I really enjoy. But that's only to be expected, since no two people ever agree on everything (in a garden or out of it). Possibly it's a reflection of the fact that I live further south than either of them (and some plants might go a little crazier along the Gulf Coast than they do where the authors live, in more central Alabama and Mississippi). Maybe, too, some things have changed in the last twenty years...
Perhaps the biggest change to come along in the past 20 years is the explosion of the Internet. When this book was published, it was difficult to locate sources for many of these old-fashioned passalongs. Therefore, the carefully cultivated list of nurseries that sold each one was probably an invaluable tool for someone set on growing an impossible-to-find-locally plant. These days, it's so much easier to search out rare plants and order them online-- not to mention the possibility of doing plant swaps with people you've met online. (Personally, I'm still a little scared of ordering plants online-- but if there's no other option and you're desperate for a particular plant...)
I heartily recommend the book to Southern gardeners with an interest in plants that have proven to do well in the South-- plants with a sense of history and place, including many that you'll probably remember from the gardens you grew up in. It's written in a casual, conversational style that makes for easy, enjoyable reading, but there's also plenty of information, including helpful hints about propagation methods and where each plant performs best.
Many of the plant descriptions are accompanied by color photographs, but some are not, so one of these days, I intend to page through the book again, look up the ones I didn't recognize by name, and make a wish list of the most exciting candidates for my own garden. And I'll be keeping the book for a handy reference (the index makes it simple to locate a particular plant's entry).
The book was published in 1993, and though (I think) the edition I have (paperback) was printed in the early 2000s, it doesn't seem that the text has been updated from the original '93 version. Difficult as it is to believe, it's been over 20 years since 1993, and as I read, there were a few times when I wondered if the authors would change anything, given a chance at a rewrite. One or two plants that they thought rare or underused in '93 strike me (in early 2016) as being fairly commonplace-- certainly not that unusual, based on what I've seen and read in the blogs of fellow gardeners around the world. However, the book has aged very well, over all-- not surprising, considering that the subject is heirloom plants, some of which have been passed along for hundreds of years!
When it comes to recommending plants, you can only be so objective, so there are occasional plants that the authors treat favorably, but which I find to be undesirable weeds-- and on the other hand, there are plants that they seem a bit less excited about that I really enjoy. But that's only to be expected, since no two people ever agree on everything (in a garden or out of it). Possibly it's a reflection of the fact that I live further south than either of them (and some plants might go a little crazier along the Gulf Coast than they do where the authors live, in more central Alabama and Mississippi). Maybe, too, some things have changed in the last twenty years...
Perhaps the biggest change to come along in the past 20 years is the explosion of the Internet. When this book was published, it was difficult to locate sources for many of these old-fashioned passalongs. Therefore, the carefully cultivated list of nurseries that sold each one was probably an invaluable tool for someone set on growing an impossible-to-find-locally plant. These days, it's so much easier to search out rare plants and order them online-- not to mention the possibility of doing plant swaps with people you've met online. (Personally, I'm still a little scared of ordering plants online-- but if there's no other option and you're desperate for a particular plant...)
I heartily recommend the book to Southern gardeners with an interest in plants that have proven to do well in the South-- plants with a sense of history and place, including many that you'll probably remember from the gardens you grew up in. It's written in a casual, conversational style that makes for easy, enjoyable reading, but there's also plenty of information, including helpful hints about propagation methods and where each plant performs best.
Many of the plant descriptions are accompanied by color photographs, but some are not, so one of these days, I intend to page through the book again, look up the ones I didn't recognize by name, and make a wish list of the most exciting candidates for my own garden. And I'll be keeping the book for a handy reference (the index makes it simple to locate a particular plant's entry).
January 2, 2016
This book is utterly delightful. It's like sitting on the porch swing in the cooling evening with a good friend, chatting about flowers and neighbors. It's funny, irreverent, and very informative. This book is a good way to spend a wintry evening, reading about summer and favorite plants. The writers are clever and humorous, and the little stories they tell make you think, "I know someone *just* like that!"
Passalong Plants is an easy, quick read. I devoured it in one sitting, but you could easily set it aside and read it in little snippets of time; the format--short, illustrated articles--lends itself to a casual perusing. It makes you itch to get back into the garden, and if you're like me, north of the ranges of most of these plants, it makes you long for just a bit more heat so you could grow some of these delightful plants.
Passalong Plants is an easy, quick read. I devoured it in one sitting, but you could easily set it aside and read it in little snippets of time; the format--short, illustrated articles--lends itself to a casual perusing. It makes you itch to get back into the garden, and if you're like me, north of the ranges of most of these plants, it makes you long for just a bit more heat so you could grow some of these delightful plants.
May 11, 2020
Passalong Plants by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing (University of North Carolina Press 1993)(635.9). This is just about my very favorite gardening book of all. “Passalong plants,” according to the authors, are those Southern cottage garden plants that are so ubiquitous that the only way to get a start of one is to ask a gardener for a piece of the plant. It will generally be quickly and happily shared, whether by seed, sprig, or slip. This is a book dedicated to the passalong plants that surround us, and it provides the authors' fifty or so favorite passalongs. This is a genuinely funny book! My rating: 8/10, finished 2005.
December 31, 2011
Oh gosh, this book is packed with great information and is absolutely hysterical to read. Even the casual gardener will want to read and chuckle along. Before you know it, you'll be searching everywhere to get your hands on some of the plants he writes about - just because of how he describes them. Great book!
June 20, 2016
Okay, so maybe gardening isn’t your thing. But if you found yourself stranded on an island with this book, you couldn’t despair completely. The humor, history and, yes, profound insight in Passalong Plants would keep your mind off your troubles for a little while.
March 14, 2011
Fabulous book with a creed I much admire and adhere to, growing and sharing heirloom plants.
January 12, 2013
My favorite reference for Southern/heirloom plants... Even if you're not avid in the garden, Steve Bender is always a fun read!
July 11, 2014
Love this book. I am still reading it, but I loved it from the beginning. I'm sure it'll be quite the resource in the future as well.
February 2, 2023
This is a re-read and a book that I refer to many times to review old plants, and to enjoy the southern humor.
April 3, 2020
Soft spot from childhood <3
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August 25, 2007I love this book! It is one that I pick up time and again. It excites me about being in the garden!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews