Our gardens are a melting pot
Published 11:50 am Monday, February 9, 2026
In spite of the trendy push for using mostly native plants in our gardens, our backyards remain among the few places where few people pay much attention to country of origin; we happily grow plants from all over the world in close harmony.
I appreciate natives, from magnolia, oak, redbud, pecan, and yaupon holly, to blackeyed susan, phlox, sunflowers, goldenrod, and many more beautiful wildflowers. I can go on for days about our incredible flora and its benefits, adaptability, and support for pollinators and wildlife. Even have a free brochure I email about the best and how to use them (email via my blog).
But most of us wouldn’t be happy with just natives. How can I give up daylilies, camellia, and pears from Asia, or daffodils and althaea (rose of Sharon) from the Middle East? Or South American sweet potato and petunias, and European lettuces?
I did an informal walk-about survey in my Jackson neighborhood and was astonished that nearly eighty percent of the plants in our landscapes are imports, from our lawn grasses to azaleas, hollies, liriope, and roses. Immigrant plants brought here for their beauty and uses.
True, a few have “gotten away from us” to take over natural areas, but truth is many of my worst weeds are natives like oak seedlings and Virginia creeper.
Anyway, my point this week is about how garden variety to high-end Southern landscapes and kitchens are indelibly connected to floral and culinary traditions from Africa. Whether grown for food, flavoring, medicines, fiber, or ornamentals, all were brought here with incredible stories, such as how, soon after African violets were “discovered” only in 1892 by European explorers in Tanga, eastern Africa, stolen leaf cuttings were smuggled nefariously by an infamous florist from England to America.
Your garden and plate would simply not be the same without many which create our strong sense of place. What Southern cook could do without blackeye peas or okra, watermelon, muskmelon, and carrots? And how many of us are aware that one of the original ingredients in Coca-Cola was the kola nut, a mild stimulant from West Africa?
Just a few of the flowers we owe to the second largest continent include periwinkle from Madagascar, gomphrena (bachelor buttons or globe amaranth), celosia (prince’s feather, cockscomb), impatiens, pentas, bottle gourd, castor bean, blackeyed Susan vine, and Joseph’s coat.
Though some need occasional protection from hard freezes, my garden features several herbaceous African perennials. Think gladiolus, umbrella sedge, Algerian ivy, gerbera daisy, agapanthus, amaryllis, plumbago, holly fern, crocosmia, society garlic, oxalis, some types of gardenias, and the indestructible milk and wine crinum.
And though I wish I could grow award-winning African violets like my grandmother did, my touch is too coarse for delicate things in need of regular care. So, my all-time favorite tropical African potted plants, mostly too tender to leave outside but which can live for decades when dragged indoors every winter, have to be very durable and withstand neglect. They include aloes, croton, sansevieria (snake plant or mother-in-law tongue), asparagus ferns, airplane or spider plant, geraniums, fiddle-leaf fig, ribbon and corn plants and other dracaenas, areca palm, pencil cactus and other euphorbias, and the uber-exotic bird of paradise.
And these are just the ones I grow myself. Though all are all but universally enjoyed and passed around from gardener to gardener – perhaps our oft-fractured communities’ easiest cross-culture connection – there are many more.
Main thing is that today’s Mississippi flower and food garden’s palette wouldn’t have our storied Southern sense of place without these favorites from the continent of Africa. Can we give up some heartfelt appreciation?
Felder Rushing is a Mississippi author, columnist, and host of the “Gestalt Gardener” on MPB Think Radio. Email gardening questions to rushingfelder@yahoo.com.
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