Lemuria Bookstore Blog

Some of Lemuria’s customers call me from time to time, even from other states, and ask me for suggestions for good gardening books since I am in charge of the gardening section. (I’ll be glad to help anyone in the store or over the phone for suggestions for Christmas gardening book gifts, a gift all [...]

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A few years ago my fiancé decided to try his green thumb on garlic. I grew up with a garden but my parents never grew garlic. I had never seen my mother use even one garlic clove since my dad found it did not agree with him. Garlic in our garden? We had a lot [...]

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With her second edition of Questions and Answers for Deep South Gardeners, Nellie Neal has compiled another winner filled with new questions and answers concerning all sorts of gardening topics from whether to prune crepe myrtles or not, to why the leaves of hollies turn yellow, to name just a couple. For the well versed [...]

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Hello all of you “raring-to-go” gardeners! Surely, surely spring is here now after the longest winter any of us can ever remember in Mississippi! It’s not time yet, at least for the next two weeks, or until Easter passes, to put out bedding plants, but it is time to get the beds ready and to [...]

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Most people at Lemuria know that when I am not here, I am either reading or in my garden.  I love being “in charge of” the gardening section at Lemuria. It mixes well with my Southern Fiction duty!  Think Barbara Kingsolver’s  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as well as her Bean Trees or Poisonwood Bible. This spring [...]

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That’s our beautiful cucumber arbor from last summer’s garden. We also grew tomatoes, okra, green beans, squash, peppers, and some not so successful sweet potatoes. We’re getting ready to prepare the beds for this summer. There are still hundreds of onions still in the ground as well . . . winter gardens are wonderful in Mississippi. My [...]

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Southern Herb Growing by Madalene Hill and Jean Hardy is a comprehensive book on everything from herb selection for our tough southern climate to designing an herb garden to preserving and cooking with herbs. In the introduction, Madalene Hill tells the story of beginning her restaurant in Cleveland, Texas despite the fact that she had [...]

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Coleus: Rainbow Foliage for Container and Gardens by Ray Rogers is a great book for anyone who loves the vibrant colors of coleus. This books contains hundreds of beautiful photos showing the diversity of this easy-to-grow southern favorite. One thing I learned was that you can make topiaries out of coleus much faster in comparison [...]

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