Flowers that Grow Well in Mississippi

      The Following Information is from the Mississippi State University Extension Service:   Selected Annual Flowering Plants For Mississippi Gardens Annuals Scientific name Light  Height  Spacing Remarks Ageratum    Ageratum houstonianum  Full sun 6-20” 9-12” Edging; tall cultivars make good cut flowers Alyssum    Lobularia maritima Sun to part shade 3-4” 6-8” Edging;…

Rue – A Host Plant for Gorgeous Butterflies

Rue Growing in Jacki Kellum’s Garden – 2023 Apparently, rue is the only plant that the former occupants of my house planted. Rue is a an old, Biblical-times plant that was essential at that time. In the USA, it has lost favor among most gardeners, but the former occupants of this house moved here from…

Church in My Garden – A Jacki Kellum Garden Journal Post for Autumn

The grasses are arching above the places where the perennials had bloomed only weeks ago. The Purple Fountain grass is darker than most of my garden now, which is still a lush, verdant green. Like icing on its cake, feathery festoons topple from the tips of each spire of the ornamental grass. Some of the…

Dorothy Wordsworth – Excerpts from Her Grasmere Journal

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH’S JOURNAL WRITTEN AT GRASMERE (14th May to 21st December 1800) MAY 14TH, 1800.—The lake looked to me, I knew not why, dull and melancholy, and the weltering on the shores seemed a heavy sound. I walked as long as I could amongst the stones of the shore. The wood rich in flowers; a…

Louisa May Alcott – Biography – Includes Journal Entries

Louisa May Alcott: HER Life, Letters, and Journals. EDITED BY EDNAH D. CHENEY BOSTON. LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1898 Copyright, 1889, By J. S. P. Alcott. INTRODUCTION. It is therefore impossible to understand Miss Alcott’s works fully without a knowledge of her own life and experiences. By inheritance and education she had rich and peculiar…

Memories of Going to the Fair

I grew up in the Bootheel of Southeast Missouri, which is about 120 miles up the Mississippi River from  Memphis, Tennessee. The highlight of my autumns was that of going to the Midsouth Fair in Memphis. My mother lived to be 97, and every time I saw her, I heard her repeat: “Brush your teeth…