You are most welcome, but I didn't just happen to discover Elizabeth Lawrence.
On a thread here on ARF several years ago, I was talking about how I was finding that the pictures from England didn't translate to my garden because the order of the blooms of the companion plants and roses was different here.
Jon of Wessex steered me to Elizabeth Lawrence, of whom I had heard nothing until that time.
Since then I've read many of her books. I've wished for newspaper columnists of her calibre. And last November, I visited her garden in late Novemeber.
You don't have to wait for spring. Her rose garden is probably still blooming and the sizes of some of the roses is a pleasure.

LOL!!! One theme that popped up often in her writings is that she was looking for blooms all year round. It would make sense that her roses are blooming...mine are. What was I thinking? Maybe this weekend I'll get there. I know I won't be shopping with the masses.

The current garden writer for the Charlotte Observer pales in comparison to what I read by Elizabeth Lawrence...what a treasure she was.

Thanks again!

Carole

Carole, I have these books and I have really enjoyed reading them. She does love roses, but she really loved all plants. I like reading her opinion on how they do as garden plants in this particular area of the south.

Carol

Lawrence's works truly qualify as garden classics. Reading her is endlessly informative and, somehow, always comforting.

Every spring when the Virginia Fringe-trees bloom, I laugh aloud thinking about Lawrence's quiet disdain for them. She thought the trees, when in flower, looked as tho someone had flung cole slaw all over them. And they do. Perfect description. But only Elizabeth Lawrence would have made such a salient, dead-on observation.

.There's a great book of letters between her and Katherine White - Two Gardeners I think is the name. Katherine lived in Maine (her husband wrote "Charlotte's Web" and Katherine wrote "Onward & Upward in the Garden."

Thanks Oldroser! I just requested that very book at the library.

Carole

I am also a great Lawrence fan. My favorite--and I think perhaps her most original book-is Gardening for Love, a very personal book about the market bulletins published at one time by State Extemsion services through the south and in which various folks, chiefly rural, offered varoius bulbs, seeds, and plants for sale or swap. Lawrence shows a respectful affection for some of the folksy voices heard in the various listings. Lawrence was a friend/acquaintance of the Mississippi writer Eudora Welty and after you read Gardening for Love you will understand the affinity.
There is also another set of gardening essays by Lawrence's friend and fellow N. C. resident, William Lanier Hunt. I forget the title but it also has interesting info about gardening in your area and the same endearing, slightly old-fashioned casually genteel tone that Lawrence has.
On unhappy days I retreat into my study with a cup of coffee or tea and a couple of Lawrence's books--they are very good company.

Rinaldo,
Thank you for sharing.
The linked page below is on worldcat.org and is the distance from my zipcode to libraries with Mr. Hunt's book.
To find a copy near you, just substitute your zipcode and resubmit.

Here is a link that might be useful: Southern Gardening