Beautiful at All Seasons: Southern Gardening and Beyond with Elizabeth Lawrence

by Elizabeth Lawrence, Ann L. Armstrong (Editor), Lindie Wilson (Editor)

Elizabeth Lawrence (1904–85) is recognized as one of America’s most important gardeners and garden writers. In 1957, Lawrence began a weekly column for the Charlotte Observer , blending gardening lore and horticultural expertise gained from her own gardens in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina, and from her many gardener friends. This book presents 132 of her beloved columns. Never before published in book form, they were chosen from the more than 700 pieces that she wrote for the Observer over fourteen years. Lawrence exchanged plants and gardening tips with everyone from southern “farm ladies” trading bulbs in garden bulletins to prominent regional gardeners. She corresponded with nursery owners, everyday backyard gardeners, and literary luminaries such as Katharine White and Eudora Welty. Her books, including A Southern Garden , The Little Bulbs , and Gardens in Winter , inspired several generations of gardeners in the South and beyond. The columns in this volume cover specific plants, such as sweet peas, hellebores, peonies, and the bamboo growing outside her living-room window, as well as broader topics including the usefulness of vines, the importance of daily pruning, and organic gardening. Like all of Lawrence’s writing, these columns are peppered with references to conversations with neighbors and quotations from poetry, mythology, and correspondence. They brim with knowledge gained from a lifetime of experimenting in her gardens, from her visits to other gardens, and from her extensive reading. Lawrence once wrote, “Dirty fingernails are not the only requirement for growing plants. One must be as willing to study as to dig, for a knowledge of plants is acquired as much from books as from experience.” As inspiring today as when they first appeared in the Charlotte Observer , the columns collected in Beautiful at All Seasons showcase not only Lawrence’s vast knowledge but also her intimate, conversational writing style and her lifelong celebration of gardens and gardening.

Genres: Gardening

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Elizabeth Lawrence was born in Marietta, Georgia, on May 27, 1904. The family moved several times, and in 1912, settled in Garysburg, NC. Lawrence "considered childhood the most important stage in a person's life," and had fond memories of her time in Garysburg.

In 1916 the family moved to Raleigh so that Elizabeth and her sister Ann might attend St. Mary’s School. Elizabeth then attended Barnard College in New York from 1922 - 1926. Upon graduation, she returned to Raleigh where she later studied landscape architecture at North Carolina State College (currently NC State University). In 1932, she became the first woman to graduate in this program at the college.

Elizabeth’s desire and passion was to garden and writing about gardening was what she knew best. In the 1930’s she slowly gained publication in a number of small garden periodicals, and then in 1942, A Southern Garden was published. It was lauded immediately. “Now, at long last,” wrote Charlotte Hilton Green, “there is a book on Southern gardening by a Southern writer that is a ‘must’ for every garden lover of the South.” It was reprinted in 1967, 1984, 1991 and 2001. A Southern Garden has long since been hailed as a classic.

In 1984, Lawrence, in declining health, moved to Maryland to be close to family. She died in 1985 in Maryland.