Author: Alice Massey

Back in the early 1940’s, Elizabeth Lawrence wrote “My Southern Garden,” a classic that is as timely today as ever. She wrote that “In the South the progress of the season does not follow the accepted pattern of spring, summer, fall and winter. Spring, when spring should come, has already been with us at intervals throughout the winter. Summer lasts into fall and fall into winter. The garden year has no beginning and no end.”

Warm weather was elusive this spring but I think we can once again begin to nurture our gardens. The Master Gardeners at the Farmers Markets are already fielding questions about tomatoes.

  You can’t open a gardening magazine or book these days without reading about home fruit and veggie gardening, and especially integrating food plants in with your ornamentals. Personally, I have not always had great luck with that. Sometimes it works for me and other times not.

  We never have a chance to get bored with the seasons here; it is a balmy 77 degrees as I write this piece and my visiting snowbirds are enjoying a last round of golf before they reluctantly return to the frozen north. This has been one of the loveliest weeks one could ask for in January. However, wildly fluctuating temperatures being the norm here, I expect by the time you read this we will be experiencing more typical winter weather and that may be chilly.

It’s January, a new year – and new possibilities for the garden abound. While I am not good at resolutions, I am a great note taker, and this is when I make copious lists of what needs to be done and what changes need to be made. Checking off each task as it is completed is as close to a resolution as I can get. One of the top items already noted is to include more plants that attract birds.

Just as you are finishing the turkey and are furiously decorating your home for the holidays it happens. You are not alone; it happens to everyone. Those houseplants you had on your porch and carefully acclimatized before bringing them indoors a month or so ago are pouting, big time.

Hasn’t the weather been perfect for enjoying the outdoors? The cool weather arrived just in time for raking, cleaning up, mulching and planting. Remember this is absolutely the most perfect time to plant perennials, spring bulbs, shrubs and trees.

Living in the Lowcountry means having lots of visitors. Recently my nephew and his family of six...

Some people stop for museums, others stop for beaches, restaurants, gift shops or those devious mountain overlooks that just beg you to pause; it is hard to pass them. My car brakes for gardens.

It happens every year – August, that is: the hottest and muggiest of months and the least enjoyable time to be working outdoors. Routine garden maintenance is about all one can keep up with while it is so uncomfortable. A lot of summer flowers are looking pretty ragged, but others save the best for last.