A Time to Plant: Southern-Style Garden Living - Hardcover

Farmer, James T.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1423623460 ISBN 13: 9781423623465

Publisher: Gibbs Smith, 2011

Synopsis

Captures Southern indoor/outdoor living traditions for a new generation . . .

A vital young voice in the gardening scene teaches a new generation of Southerners to love gardening and to make it a focal point of their lifestyle. James Farmer III teaches respect for the age-old rules of flower and vegetable gardening in the Deep South (e.g., plant in spring for fall blooms, plant in fall for spring blooms), in a fresh voice that resonates love of life and entertaining at home. Also included are delicious recipes for seasonal meals, as well as suggestions for floral arrangements and centerpieces from the garden.

About this title

About the Author

James T. Farmer III is the author of A Time to Plant. His company, James Farmer Designs, specializes in landscape and interior design. James is a proponent of garden living and entertaining, or weaving the bounties of the garden into your daily life. Find him at www.James.Farmer.com. He lives in Kathleen, Georgia.

From the Back Cover

To everything there is a season . . . a time to plant, and a time to harvest. Whether you are a novice dirt dabbler or a well-seasoned gardener, timing is crucial in gardening. And with proper timing, nature provides us with not only sustenance but trimmings for the home and table, provisions for a garden lifestyle.

Garden living, or weaving the garden into your daily life, is a lifestyle filled with rewarding promise and new adventure. Harvesting your own vegetables for a dinner party, arranging your own garden-grown goodness in a bouquet, or entertaining within the garden provides the gardener, cook, and decorator alike an opportunity to meld these talents into a harmonious blend for garden living.

A Time to Plant is a guide to garden living—an invitation to walk through the garden, see the possibilities of its bounty, smell the perfumes that abound, taste the produce, and hear the symphony of nature. With photographs, tips, and methods, A Time to Plant will become your guide to a successful gardening way of life.

From holidays to every day, the garden can be your source of all things fresh and elegant. Sprigs of mint in your iced tea and lemonade, hydrangeas gracing your tablescape, mantels and halls decked for the season, and a kitchen filled with garden flavors—all are a part of a garden life, garden living, and life well lived.

Hailing from the peach-laden fields and muddy river portion of Middle Georgia, James T. Farmer III, is president of James Farmer Designs, which specializes in residential landscape design, floral design, and interiors. James graduated from Auburn University.

As a native of the Deep South and enthralled with all things Southern, James was influenced by great Southern architects as well as antebellum architecture, having been influenced by the land and flora of his family farm—an old plantation in Kathleen, Georgia, just outside of Macon, complete with rock walls, boxwood parterres, and European influences. Summering on Sea Island also dictated a touch of that particular coastal style in his work. His design practice is about bringing the classicism of the past to the needs of modernity. Find him at www.JamesFarmer.com.

From the Inside Flap

To everything there is a season . . . a time to plant, and a time to harvest. Whether you are a novice dirt dabbler or a well-seasoned gardener, timing is crucial in gardening. And with proper timing, nature provides us with not only sustenance but trimmings for the home and table, provisions for a garden lifestyle.

Garden living, or weaving the garden into your daily life, is a lifestyle filled with rewarding promise and new adventure. Harvesting your own vegetables for a dinner party, arranging your own garden-grown goodness in a bouquet, or entertaining within the garden provides the gardener, cook, and decorator alike an opportunity to meld these talents into a harmonious blend for garden living.

A Time to Plant is a guide to garden living―an invitation to walk through the garden, see the possibilities of its bounty, smell the perfumes that abound, taste the produce, and hear the symphony of nature. With photographs, tips, and methods, A Time to Plant will become your guide to a successful gardening way of life.

From holidays to every day, the garden can be your source of all things fresh and elegant. Sprigs of mint in your iced tea and lemonade, hydrangeas gracing your tablescape, mantels and halls decked for the season, and a kitchen filled with garden flavors―all are a part of a garden life, garden living, and life well lived.

Hailing from the peach-laden fields and muddy river portion of Middle Georgia, James T. Farmer III, is president of James Farmer Designs, which specializes in residential landscape design, floral design, and interiors. James graduated from Auburn University.

As a native of the Deep South and enthralled with all things Southern, James was influenced by great Southern architects as well as antebellum architecture, having been influenced by the land and flora of his family farm―an old plantation in Kathleen, Georgia, just outside of Macon, complete with rock walls, boxwood parterres, and European influences. Summering on Sea Island also dictated a touch of that particular coastal style in his work. His design practice is about bringing the classicism of the past to the needs of modernity. Find him at www.JamesFarmer.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

If you learn nothing else about pruning, remember the May Rule. This rule applies to the Deep South as well as to broad sections of the country. If the shrub blooms BEFORE May, then prune the plant immediately after the shrub has bloomed, or while it’s blooming, to bring the blossoms inside for arrangements and enjoyment. This rule bodes well for azaleas, spring-blooming spireas, forsythia, camellias and sasanquas, quince, dogwood, red bud, Japanese magnolia, tea olive, winter daphne, English dogwood, and other “blooms before May” shrubs (early spring bloomers in general). In the Deep South, our “month” of May can start in March and end in May proper, so the quintessential early spring bloomers are those to keep in mind for this section of the rule.

If the shrub blooms AFTER May, prune the plant during dormancy, or in wintertime. This goes for hydrangeas (except Oak Leaf: prune those immediately after blooming or during bloom for arrangements), crape myrtles, vitex, roses, althea, grapes (prune on the coldest day of the year), Confederate rose, pyracantha, liriope and small fruit trees.

Edition details

• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1423623460
• ISBN 13: 9781423623465
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208