By: Gina Lanaux

Felder Rushing is a celebrity: an author of eighteen books, thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, a radio talk show host (The Gestalt Gardener) on Mississippi Public Broadcasting, and a guru to plant people all over the United States. He lives in Jackson, Ms., and is a horticulture specialist.   Recently, I met and heard him speak in the Daphne Senior Center courtyard. Why? A Plant Swap!

About 90 gardeners brought plants, cuttings, seeds, and starts and laid them out in rows on the concrete. The host, my friend Grace Skidmore, a horticulturist, introduced me to this plant-obsessed gathering.  The premise is that each person, when their birthday month is called, gets to pick one plant and another in a second round. Then it's a free-for-all.

Attendees walked about, scoping out what they wanted to score, which was tricky because sometimes there was only one or two of the most desired plants. My birth month wasn't called until last, so I anxiously stood by the one tree I wanted, a buck-eye, hoping and praying no one would want the lone stick in a pot. Only I knew what it would grow to be, so it became mine!  My second pick was another treasure, and then it was a mad dash for everyone to get the extras, and before I knew it, the space was empty of all things green. 

With both undergrad and graduate degrees from Penn State, Grace has had an incredible career as a horticulturist. Her husband, Bruce, is a Hotelier, and they have lived in 19 different places in their 39 years of marriage. They spent 10 years at Disney World, where Grace was hired as a gardener. 

“Everybody has to start at a low level and pay your dues, but in less than a year, I was promoted to the Horticultural Think Tank. There were 4 of us who trained a staff of 900 gardeners.” After making friends with some ‘Imagineers’ (Disney imaginative engineers) she had the opportunity to work as a landscape project consultant and turned 580 acres of cattle pastures into the Animal Kingdom Theme Park, which opened in 1998. Grace was a contributing writer for the book, Disney’s Gardening with Micky.

In 2005, she became the Director of Horticulture at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear and was tasked with restoring the resort grounds and gardens that Hurricane Katrina destroyed. She had 6 weeks to do the makeover, and she treated the landscaping redesign as if it were her backyard, but on a massive scale. 

Later, she joined a landscape architecture firm in Malibu, California, and gave her expertise to the creation of another Animal Kingdom in Al Ain, an ancestral holiday location for the ruling families of the United Arab Emirates. “ We had 2000 acres of desert to transform into a mixed-use development with a zoo, retail shops, and dining; a project I am very proud of.” 

Grace got to know Felder Rushing as she was driving back and forth from Montgomery to Little Rock, Arkansas. She would listen to his 9 am broadcast and enjoy his tidbits of wisdom about local garden management. They were both members of the American Horticultural Society and because she was a big fan of his knowledge, she wanted to nominate him for Horticulturist of the Year, an award she says is like the Oscars for Horticulture. She called to tell him she was his nominator, and they became phone friends.  

She learned the concept of pass-along plants, Rushing has a book of the same name, Passalong Plants, that brings gardeners with little in common except their love of plants, to swap homegrown shrubs, vines, seedlings, bulbs etcetera. Grace said,  “Free Plants, I'm all in! “  This was the second Plant Swap she had hosted and when Felder learned of it he said“ I’m coming“  Grace said Felder loves to attend Plant Swaps, and he comes at least twice a year to the Mobile Plant Swap.  The next swap will be held on October 26th from 10 to 12 noon at Central Presbyterian Church in Mobile.

Besides getting free plants at a Swap, you can also get gardening advice and learn about plants you didn't know existed. There was a Dancing Lady Ginger that I had never seen before but alas, gone in an earlier birthday month. I did come home with my beloved Buck Eye, a Rose of Sharon, a Hydrangea, and a Black Willow, and guess what, I don't know what a black willow is! 

Felder reminded us that we were there to share unusual plants grown by unusual people. It was an unusual experience too, and I can't wait for the next one! 

Grace tells me she is hoping to bring a Swap to Fairhope soon. So take some cuttings of your favorite plants and get ready to share the love.