Horticulturist Felder Rushing Speaks Saturday
Last updated Thursday, November 13, 2008 9:28 PM CST in Weekend
By Becca Bacon Martin
THE MORNING NEWS
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“I have 10 bottle trees in my yard — and the very people who don’t like bottle trees think it’s perfectly normal to hang stuff from their ears!”
— Garden expert Felder Rushing
If you don’t think gardening is fall-down-and-roll-in-the-dirt funny, you’ve never met Felder Rushing.
Rushing is a 10th generation Southern gardener, author or co-author of 15 gardening books and a former Extension Service urban horticulture specialist. He’s also a nationally known columnist, television and radio personality and a popular speaker, who will discuss his passion for gardening at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks in Fayetteville.
But beyond all that, he’s funnier than the gnomes in his Jackson, Miss., cottage garden — and they’re pretty funny, at least in the pictures!
“My talk is aimed toward people who don’t belong to groups,” Rushing says, unconcerned that his appearance is sponsored by the Flower, Garden and Nature Society of Northwest Arkansas. “That’s my real audience — people scared off by the word ‘society’ or ‘club.’
“Putting feed in the bird feeder, raking leaves instead of blowing them because that rakey sound is better than the blowy sound, having a rain gauge because it makes you use all your senses — that’s all part of gardening,” Rushing says. “So many people want to grow something, but they’re afraid they’ll mess up — or that people will make fun of them. Any time you plant something, that’s a good thing.”
“Felder Rushing has a formal background in horticulture, and he combines that knowledge with a genuine admiration for the peculiar elements that make Southern gardens Southern,” says Sarah King, the Botanical Garden’s director of community programs. “People who embrace the bottle tree, the crown planter and other garden decorations made from old tires will love him.”
Rushing says in spite of his academic and professional pedigree, he’s going to “mock a lot of horticulture traditions” in his talk Saturday.
“You really don’t have to have your soil tested to be a good gardener,” he says. “You can prune roses with cherry bombs, and they’ll still bloom. You can plant any color flower next to any other color flower. You have the right to as many wind chimes as you can afford. And a pink flamingo or a concrete chicken is as valid as a naked goddess!”
Rushing says it’s easy to start gardening.
“Go to a garden center and get a nice pot and some potting soil,” he advises. “Stick some spring bulbs in it, then put pansies on top.
“And once you’ve done one, why not do two? Or three? You can take an old wheelbarrow and fill it with plants! The worst thing that can happen is that people will talk about you — and I’m from a small town, so I know they’ll talk about you anyway!”
Rushing recalls seeing a yard along U.S. 71 near Fort Smith decorated with “three matching toilets full of artificial flowers.”
“One is tacky,” he says. “Three shows intent. The man who invented pink flamingoes always said that before plastic, only the wealthy could afford poor taste.”
More seriously, Rushing says his cottage garden has “a compost bin, a bird feeder, a waterfall, lots of garden art and mostly plants I’ve collected from old home sites and from experienced gardeners — plants that will grow in cemeteries with no one to tend them — plus cutting-edge plants” he’s brought home from his travels around the country. “I’m looking for plants that are survivors,” he says.
“He’s an ambassador for heirloom plants — some people call them pass-along plants — that you can’t find in seed catalogs,” adds King. “These are the plants that you get from your grandmother or a neighbor. These plants give gardens a story.”
Rushing will advise his Botanical Garden audience on plants that will grow well in Northwest Arkansas “and how you can put them together in interesting combinations.”
“There’s a real simple recipe for arranging plants,” he explains. “It’ll look good as long as you have something spiky, something roundy and something frilly — and that works for gardens, flower arrangements, anything!”
Asked what people say about his talks, Rushing laughs.
“Usually they say they weren’t expecting to have that much fun,” he says. “We whoop it up!”
Rushing will sign copies of his books at 9:30 a.m.
Home & Garden
“Slow Gardening: Less Input and More Rewards”
With Felder Rushing
Date & Time: 10 a.m. Saturday
Venue: Botanical Garden of the Ozarks in Fayetteville
Admission: $15 (free to members of the Flower, Garden and Nature Society of Northwest Arkansas)
For information, call 841-8759.
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