By Jackie Sledge
Big Country Master Gardener Association
Early one morning not long ago I was sitting on my back porch watching the sunrise and solving the problems of the world – or actually the problems of my backyard. As I looked around at the flower beds and thought about the plants in each one, I suddenly realized how they make me happy even though they are suffering from the heat and drought. I like to garden because I grew up gardening with my wonderful, patient, loving grandmother who taught me about West Texas gardening and my other wonderful, patient, loving grandmother who taught me about flowers, vegetables, fruits, and trees that grew in Wisconsin. I had the best of two worlds!
Let’s move on from my childhood gardens to the ones I am struggling to keep alive in over 100-degree temperatures combined with a lack of rain. As I made a list of plants in different areas in the yard, I had an epiphany, “a moment when you suddenly feel that you understand, or suddenly become conscious of, something that is very important to you” per the definition from the Internet. I love my plants, and I realized that some of my very favorites are ones that my gardener friends had shared with me. It isn’t unusual for friends to send messages that they are digging up plants in their yards, collecting seeds, or wanting to share extra baby plants with anyone who wants them. I look around and see so many plants that I have been fortunate enough to have gotten from gardener friends – irises, daylilies, yarrow, flame acanthus, artemisia, purple heart, hibiscus, and many others. I have shared my “spares” with friends and have also planted some in Master Gardener project gardens.
Back to the idea of sharing plants. I thought there had to be an official name for this, so I started researching, and of course there is. Passalong Plants. Yes, that is the name, and it describes the process perfectly! Gardeners don’t want to throw away plants or seeds, so we “pass along” extra plants, seeds, and cuttings to our friends and neighbors who will give them good homes. There are also plants that are difficult to find so we have to depend on gardener friends to share them with us.
A passalong plant can be propagated easily by one of the following ways and then given away to a gardener friend:
- Division. Plants should usually be divided opposite the season when they bloom. Examples of plants that can be passed along through division are cannas, coreopsis, dianthus, daylilies, iris, and phlox. TIP: Daylily is a great passalong plant because it’s easy to divide, easy to plant, and hard to kill.
- Seeds. Seeds can be collected and saved for planting outside or starting indoors or in a greenhouse. Examples of plants that can be grown from passed-along seeds are butterfly weed, yarrow, coreopsis, purple coneflower, Gaura, Turk’s cap, salvias, and so many others.
- Cuttings. Take cuttings of plants to start new ones. If you have plants that won’t survive in cold temperatures, start new plants from cuttings and set them out in the spring.
Passalong Plants by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing is a wonderful – and entertaining – book about passalong plants. Several quotes from the book explain passalong plants in the following ways:
- “What this book is about is old plants. Old people. Young people. Memories. Shared experiences. Shared plants. Feeling, history, advice, opinions. It’s about the flowers, trees, shrubs, vines, and bulbs that Southerners grew up with, can’t forget, and unfortunately, have a devil of a time finding anymore in garden centers.”
- “Luckily, to a gardener, all other gardeners are friends. A true gardener would much rather shake a hornet’s nest than deny an interested party the joy of a beautiful plant.”
- “We must explain at the onset that old-fashioned plants and passalongs are not necessarily the same. For example, a plant may have been around for ages and evoke fond memories, but if it’s difficult to propagate, it’s unlikely to be handed from neighbor to neighbor. A prime criterion for passalongs is the ease and regularity with which they can be propagated and given away. These plants afford our only opportunity to divide and multiply at the same time.”
Passalong plants are broken down into several categories in the book, so here are some examples:
1 – Smells For the Sidetrack – Those childhood plants we treasure for their sweet fragrance.
We tend to have memories connected with the sense of smell more often than with the senses of sight, hearing, touch, or taste.
Some passalong plants in this category are:
- Four-o’clocks. Mirabilis jalapa. Perennial. Size: up to 3 feet tall. Light: full sun to part shade. Well-drained soil. This plant got its name because of the fragrant citrus-scented flowers that open in late afternoon and close the next morning. They attract hummingbirds. I remember my grandmother had Four-o’clocks in the back yard near the porch because she loved the smell of the flowers in the evening.
- Crinums. Crinum sp. Bulb. Size: 3-5 feet tall. Light: full or part sun. Prefers moist, fertile, well-drained soil, but very adaptable. This is a tough plant that tolerates low maintenance or neglect, and the bulbs seldom need to be dug or divided. The large tubular flowers have a strong fragrance in the evening. Note: Swenson House has a bed full of Crinums.
- Other plants mentioned – Sweet Shrub, Calycanthus floridus; Winter Honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima; Clove Currant, Ribes odoratum; Ginger Lily, Hedychium coronarium; Tuberose, Polianthes tuberosa; Sweet Pea, Lathyrus odoratus.
2 – The Plants That Get Away– Rampant plants that will pass themselves along if we don’t get around to it.
These are plants that reproduce by seeds, layering, or suckers and can overrun your landscape.
Some passalong plants in this category are:
- Trumpet Vine. Campsis radicans. Vine. Size: Unlimited. Light: sun or shade. Well-drained soil. Growth rate: Fast. This vine grows very rapidly and sends out shoots into the yard or the rest of the garden bed. It has beautiful orange or red trumpet-shaped blooms that attract hummingbirds.
- Sundrops. Oenothera fruticosa. Perennial. Size: 2-3 feet tall. Light: full sun. Well-drained soil. Growth rate: Moderate. This is a showy wildflower with bright yellow flowers on top of dark green foliage, and it blooms during the day. Dig and divide them in fall or early spring. Some of their cousins are Evening Primrose and Pink Primrose.
- Other plants mentioned – Tawny Daylily, Hemerocallis fulva; Bee Balm, Monarda didyma; Sweet Autumn Clematis, Clematis paniculata; Artemisia, Artemisia ludoviciana; Mimosa, Albizzia julibrissin; Spiderwort, Tradescantia virginiana; Yarrow, Achillea sp; Obedient Plant, Physostegia virginiana; Chinaberry, Melia azedarach; Kudzu, Pueraria lobata.
Watch for Passalong Plants Part 2 with more categories of plants to share.
BCMGA offers several education programs each month. There is a program at 6:00 p.m. on the 1st Tuesday of the month at the South Library Branch in the Mall of Abilene, and the same program is offered again at 10:00 a.m. on the 2nd Friday of the month at the Downtown Library. Watch the BCMGA website and Facebook page for the topics and dates of these monthly programs.
If you have any questions, call the Taylor County Extension Office at 325-672-6048 or email us at mgardeners@yahoo.com. We hope you visit bcmgtx.org for information on all Big Country Master Gardener events, like us on BCMGA Facebook, and check out training presentations on BCMGA YouTube. We are here to help you.
Until next week – Happy Gardening!
