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\nMore than any other book, I can see Passalong Plants<\/a> as a blog. The book is a collection of short essays (posts) focusing on an individual plant. Each entry has a snappy title and all contain a very personal story about encounters with said plant. Nothing formal or academic about Passalong Plants<\/i> and yet the information is the best kind…words of experience. Most entries have a photograph. Doesn’t that sound like blog format?\n<\/p>\n \nSteve Bender (who gardens in Birmingham, AL) and Felder Rushing<\/a> (who gardens in Jackson, MI) write in a determinedly folksy style, heavily laced with southern drawl. I can just imagine lounging on the front porch, as water condenses on the tall glasses of iced tea, listening to the pair of them tell one interesting plant story after another.\n<\/p>\n \nI don’t have to imagine too hard because I had the good fortune to have lunch with Felder Rushing in 1995, the day after he had a book signing at the local garden club. I’d bought three copies of Passalong Plants<\/i>, one each for me and my two best friends at work. One of those friends just happens to know the owners of Barton Springs Nursery who just happen to know Felder Rushing and the next thing I knew we were all eating Mexican food at ZuZu’s on Bee Caves Rd. His stories were just as funny in real life. I remember especially his attempts to obtain a cutting of variegated St. Augustine grass<\/a> from a little old lady who had discovered it in her garden.\n<\/p>\n \nBefore I bought my own copy of Passalong Plants<\/i>, I’d read the library copy several times. As a beginning gardener I found the writing style a reassuring antidote to all those stuffy books on English or Connecticut gardens. Most importantly, the plants discussed were plants I had growing in my yard and in my neighborhood. And they celebrated the same wacky aesthetic sensibility<\/a> (bottle trees, pink flamingoes, tire planters<\/a>) that my neighborhood is infamous for. In short, they spoke my language.\n<\/p>\n \n“Jeff McCormack, who runs the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange…describes the fragrance as reminiscent of strawberry and cantaloupe when the flower first opens, changing to burgundy wine and then spiced apples as it ages…I’ll stick to my description of the scent as similar to that of Juicy-Fruit Gum. Vintage 1979 Juicy-Fruit gum, to be exact. — Steve Bender\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \nPassalong Plants<\/i> didn’t influence just my plant choices for the next 10 years. It influenced the way I wrote about gardening. When I began Zanthan Gardens in 2001, I was primarily interested in writing up Plant Profiles<\/a>, my own reports on how plants fared in Austin. My layout is loosely borrowed from Passalong Plants<\/i>: a sidebar with some plant factoids, a photograph or two, and the story of my own experience with the plant. I’m not as funny or as informative of Messrs. Bender and Rushing–but they had an unmistakable influence, don’t you think? Pure inspiration!\n<\/p>\n\n
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