By all means, visit a local nursery and get inspired, but before you do let me offer a suggestion…

Shop Your Own Plants

On cool mornings or evenings in September and October, I like to wander around my property looking for plants to multiply:

Those irises look crowded in that corner, and the border has holes. Dig up, divide, move around.

Some of those lilies repeated across the front bed would round out the design.

The hellebores have naturalized behind the camellias, where no one sees them. Let’s bring some into the woodland garden.

That fern is getting fried. Find a spot for him in a shadier spot.

There’s a redbud sapling behind the azaleas; let’s pot it up and give it a chance to thrive.

Anyone can do this: Share plants with yourself.

But it helps to have a few things in the back of your mind:

1. A basic understanding of some landscape design principles
   For an aesthetically pleasing garden, you need MORE plants, but not necessarily more KINDS of plants. I once heard that English treasure of a man Monty Don say a garden doesn’t need more than 5-7 different kinds of plants, it just needs more of the ones it does have.
   
   So if you have one or two of something planted somewhere, you can vastly improve the situation, generally, by adding 3-5 more of each. It’s going to look better.
   
   Related, it helps to repeat plants across your line of sight. It makes different areas of your property feel connected, designed.
   
   That’s a very simplistic primer. Read books. Watch videos. Look at sketches. It’s not hard to learn what works and why, and then you can decide when you want to break “rules.”
   
   Recalling some sound principles while you’re walking about will help you find inspiration. (It also helps me reign in my creative impulses when I do go to the plant nursery.)
   

2. A basic understanding of what to move in the fall and what to wait to move until spring
   You can always Google it to be sure, but generally speaking, I will move trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs in the fall.
   
   I wait until spring for most grasses, partly because it’s just easier to manage. You can cut them back once you start seeing some new growth begin to emerge, dig up a less unwieldy plant, divide them and replant.

Now… on to the second thing: Gardeners share!

Share Plants with Your Neighbors

If you find yourself digging up more than you feel so inclined to replant, share them with a friend. It’s just what gardeners do. All of the irises on my property were shared with me. And the blue mistflower. And the fig tree. You get the idea.

If you’re local, let me invite you to come share plants at a free event in the Village of West Greenville on Saturday, October 4!

This is our fifth or sixth “Plant Share,” and we’d love to see you there. We used to call it a swap… but new gardeners seemed to get itchy accepting free plants when they didn’t bring any to contribute. (We want you to get over that, but we do understand. We changed the name.)

At our spring event, neighbors showed up with thornless blackberry plants, native flowers and trees, cactus, veggie starter plants, seed packets, and much more.

We’d love to see you there!

We started doing this a few years ago, and we called it a “Plant Swap” at first…

But we learned people feel bad taking a plant if they didn’t bring one, and we organizers ended up with more than we brought 😆

So now, we call it a “Plant Share,” and you are invited to unashamedly come participate even if you don’t have anything to bring!

If you do want to bring something to share, people usually bring seeds, cuttings, plants they’ve divided or volunteer plants that popped up in their garden, and/or seedlings they’ve grown from seeds.

I hope you’ll come out and say hi 👋

It can turn up an answer to every question you can think to ask.

But there’s a reason we don’t structure education curriculum as a completely free-form process, relying on students to supply all the questions and the teachers to supply all the answers:

We’d very quickly get to the point where the students aren’t asking the right questions, or they’ve asked all the ones they could come up with from their limited understanding.

To master a new subject, it helps to have someone else who has experience to lay out for you a path to follow and answer your questions along the way.

This is one reason I love garden books.

You get a start-to-finish deep-dive on a topic from an expert’s experience. Questions are raised that I had never thought to ask, and they’re answered.

I love Monty Don as much as the next person. I love his books, and I find myself in late winter scrolling through archived episodes of Gardener’s World on Amazon Prime while I’m pining for spring planting weather.

Still, every time I do, I’m reminded of a simple fact:

Gardening is local endeavor—a hyper-local endeavor.

I learn things from Monty, but I have to keep in mind his climate and soil in the UK are vastly different from mine in Upstate South Carolina.

This is one reason I love to learn from local gardeners.

They know what they know about how to grow plants here where I live.

There are obviously things that are universally true about growing plants; but there are also nuances about where you do it that ultimately separate the successful from the unsuccessful.

It’s why I started this newsletter: I wanted to curate the collective wisdom of gardeners and farmers in and around Greenville.

The people who grow things here often have insights you won’t find out there.

It’s Both/And

• Read more actual gardening books and you will learn more faster.

• Follow and engage with more local gardeners and you will learn more faster. (Not to mention, you’ll make friends.)

Let me conclude with an invitation that brings these thoughts together: A free spring gardening event with books and local gardeners!

I’d like to invite you to join me at my favorite independent bookstore in Greenville, M. Judson Booksellers on March 24.

Salon Series: Home Gardening Panel

March 24, 2025 | 5:30pm | FREE

There will be books! There will be local gardeners to answer your questions!

I am on the panel, but I’m most excited to learn from fellow panelists Julie Thompson-Adolf, author of Starting & Saving Seeds: Grow the Perfect Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs, and Flowers for Your Garden and Sarah DuBose, of Sassafras Flower Farm.

I hope to see you there.

This little pop-up at M. Judson is one of those for me.

I’ll be hosting a table with copies of The Uncomplicated Gardener for sale in the lobby of MY FAVORITE BOOKSTORE, in my favorite city, from 10am - 12pm on Saturday, June 22

Come by and say hi!

Bring your complicated gardening questions!

Bring your uncomplicated gardening tips!

Or just bring yourself and a smile and a wave.

I’m partnering up with Mill Village Farms and the Brandon Mill Community to host another swap & share event. 

Bring plants, seedlings, cuttings and/or seeds to share with another plant lover. 

Don’t have anything to bring? Come anyway! 

We have literally had more plants and seeds than we’ve been able to giveaway at the first two events. 

(And last time someone also brought two kittens.) 

We’ll be set up in the Mill Village Farms parking lot at 1186 Pendleton Street on May 18, 2024 from 10am - 12pm.

I hope to see you there!

WHO: GVL Gardening and Good Printed Things

WHAT: Seed & Starts Swap

WHEN: Saturday, May 20 from 3PM-5PM

WHERE: Hollowed Earth in Hampton Station

Join me and Lib Ramos for our first-ever Seed & Starts Swap, a little collaboration between GVL Gardening & Good Printed Things.

Bring viable seeds and rooted cuttings to swap with other local gardening enthusiasts. 

This is a low-key, drop-in style event in a beautiful setting (I dare you not to take home some new pottery…) with ample amenities close by:

Grab coffee at Due South, drinks at Birds Fly South, or dinner at White Duck Taco, Bourbon St. Burgers, or Keipei. 

No registration required; but this is how it will work:

1. Bring a few seed packets and/or rooted cuttings.

2. Tag them and label with a note or story for the new owner. (We’ll provide the tags!)

3. Get tickets = to the number of items you brought.

4. Shop the swap and spend your tickets!

Join us to make a new gardening friend take home some free plant babies and seeds for your spring garden. 

Our Plants Paper Route, with its gorgeous artwork by Charis JB, will be making its official debut at the Seeds & Starts Swap event! All of the Paper Routes maps are rooted in the concept of collaboration, so the opportunity to launch this as part of a community event couldn’t be more perfect.

Drop in anytime between 3-5pm with saved seeds or rooted cuttings and take home some free plant babies and seeds for your spring garden! 

P.S. I started my Instagram channel hoping to make more gardening friends around Greenville, and putting on an event like this is something I was dreaming of! So thrilled to invite you to join us. I hope to see you there!

To buy plants like this—with little forethought, driven simply by our seasonal disposition that matches the smiles on those hot pink Gerber daisies—is just so easy. (I’ve been there!)

And ease is what drives so much of our spending in this country. 

The “shop local” movement has exploded in just about every direction.

Could we agree to also shop local when we need new plants? It supports small businesses and makes us better gardeners. 

Let me offer three compelling reasons to skip the big-box stores when you’re buying plants:

1. Quality. 

The chain stores buy in bulk from nurseries across the country, offering common plants based on marketing calendars rather than local knowledge and seasonal wisdom. Local nurseries often source from regional growers who supply plants adapted to our climate, grown on a smaller scale, and offered at the right time. 

2. Uniqueness.

Shop only at big-box stores and you’d be forgiven for thinking there are only blue and pink hydrangeas, vinca and phlox for ground covers, and pansies for winter interest. Local nurseries and plant shops have more variety and more native plant options. 

3. Expertise. 

In our locals, you’ll find life-long gardeners, horticulturists, landscape professionals, proud houseplant lovers, and arborists who can answer any question you have, and help you make good choices.

It’s not just nurseries, either.

You can also find deals on quality plants at the seasonal plant sales offered in spring and fall by groups like the Greenville Master Gardeners, Upstate Native Plant Society, Future Farmers of America clubs at area high schools, South Carolina Botanical Garden in Clemson, and Spartanburg Community College’s horticulture program. 

And, dozens of local growers have booths at our area farmers markets, including the TD Saturday Market and the Travelers Rest Farmers Market.

If there’s one thing I find common among people who like plants but believe they can’t have a green thumb it’s this:

They often bring home plants that already have problems and then get disappointed by their performance.

Start with healthy, well-cared for plants and you’ll see much more success. This is especially important if you’re new to gardening—the wins keep you going. 

Carve out some time to visit a few local nurseries or farmers markets this spring. You’ll enjoy the search more, and your thumb will turn a shade greener.

And to help you…

I’ve been collaborating with designer Lib Ramos and Charis JB on a new edition in the “Paper Routes” series from Good Printed Things—

It’s a unique and beautiful map of the best places to buy plants locally!

I was beyond honored to be asked to participate in this project. And I had so much fun working on it—visiting plant shops I’d never been to, talking to the staff at the nurseries, and generally trying to avoid buying way to many plants in the name of research!

Paper Routes is a series of collaborative illustrated maps from Good Printed Things — a Greenville-based publishing company. Each guide combines the work of a local artist and writer to highlight places that make Greenville unique, supporting our local economy through art.

Good Printed Things projects facilitate collaboration between writers, designers, and artists, and showcase the good that comes from the intersection of talents.

This special Plants edition is available for pre-order and wholesale orders now, and will be available from local retailers like M. Judson Booksellers on May 14.

I hope you’ll join me in supporting this project! I’m going to frame one in my house. It’s that pretty :)

To celebrate its release, we’re planning a Seeds & Starts Plant Swap! Mark your calendar for May 20, from 3-5pm at Hollowed Earth Pottery in Hampton Station.

I caught up with Leyly and Brogan from Sun & Soil Plant Parlor on Augusta for their top tips:

It's easy to forget houseplants when you're thinking about spring gardening chores. What do you recommend to give houseplants some extra care early in the season? 

“Just as houses love a good dusting and cleaning, houseplants do too! Taking time to gently wipe down leaves with a damp cloth, feed with plant biotic or plant food, and spraying with a general pest spray can prepare each plant for the upcoming growing season!”

Fertilizer can be intimidating to new plant parents. But since houseplants rely on us for nutritious soil, it's a hurdle we need to get over. What are your favorite fertilizers for houseplants? Any suggestions for making it seem simpler? 

“Our favorite plant food, soil AND biotics all come from Good Dirt, a small business that is owned and run by the sweetest couple! Their products are top end and our go-to for caring for all of our plants both in the plant parlor and at home. With the plant food in particular, one capful mixes into a gallon of water. You can fill up a watering can with the right proportions and then use that on each watering day to water as normal.”

What are your favorite houseplants for people with low light or few to no south-facing windows? 

“Our favorite low light houseplants are definitely the hard to kill Sansevieria varieties, ZZ plants, and Dracaena varieties.”

How do we know it's time to re-pot a houseplant? 

“In terms of season, spring is always the best time to repot your houseplants as the plant will be actively growing and the new roots will be able to take hold in the new soil. In general, houseplants typically need to be repotted every 12 months or so but this is very dependent on the actual plant itself.”

Fun Fact: Sun & Soil will repot your houseplants for free… even ones you didn’t buy from them. Check them out!