CULLMAN — Weather like this makes me languish. I like that word. Languish. It must be a Southern word, rolling off the tongue like molasses. There’s another one, molasses. I like that one, too. These words are like our accents here in the South, soft and easy, swapping hard constants for long drawn out vowels.

Languish, according to the dictionary means “to long for something that is being denied”. That longing is probably for some relief from the humidity — the air is so thick that it weighs on the skin, a heavy, moist, clinging thing to be endured for the next several months.

The good thing about this kind of weather is that my garden is practically growing by the minute. Vines wrap their tendrils around anything nearby so rapidly that you can almost see them climbing. The Blackeyed Susan vine above the entrance to the garden has almost reached the arch over the flagstone path.

Jackson vine clings to the trellis and stretches itself along the top of the fence, its attractive wine-colored berries enticing birds into the yard like a magnet. This vine is a staple of Southern wedding receptions, decorating everything from alters to appetizers with its airy foliage.

Other plants seem to have taken on a monstrous character, crawling and creeping over and around boxwoods and hydrangeas. The Purple Heart is one of the most vigorous, making a spectacle of itself everywhere, giving the garden a much-needed shot of deep purple that seems to complement everything else. It is so easy to root that I can just snap a bit of it off and throw it on the ground where it roots almost overnight, as if by magic.

The impatiens will do the same thing, multiplying rapidly and filling the shady spots with their bountiful blooms, tumbling out of pots and among the rocks under the waterfall to add a splash of color. Impatiens are easy to propagate — just as long as they can touch the ground they will take root, and you’ll have another spot of color, making the garden a rich tapestry of orange, red, pink, magenta and purple interwoven with shots of white to keep it under some kind of control.

But gardening in the South has its drawbacks, too. Nasty fungus appears when the heat is turned up, and the humidity is higher than a Georgia pine. Water standing on leaves overnight combined with this humidity is a surefire recipe for funguses like blackspot and anthracnose. These diseases can easily overtake a tree or shrub in no time flat and spread like wildfire throughout the garden. Spraying with a fungicide is one way of deterring the spread of these dread diseases, but as the old saying goes, “a drop of prevention is worth an ounce of cure.”

Preventative measures include watering early in the morning so that leaves will dry before the humidity reaches its peak. Using a soaker hose will keep leaves dry, and is a more efficient method of delivering water to the root system, causing less evaporation in high temperatures. (I like the soaker method because I’ve noticed that the automatic sprinkler knocks the blossoms off my roses and other blooming flowers and shrubs.)

Insects love our Southern climate as well. The intense heat of mid-day and the abundance of foliage on which to munch and suck are virtually a smorgasbord to spider mites and white flies, not to mention mealy bugs. Mild winters make it possible for some of these pests to survive year round in evergreens and of course the newest scourge of the Southern gardener, the Japanese beetle, makes its winter home underground beneath the shrubs and trees it devours in the early summer.

There are various sprays and powders which help to control these infernal interlopers who distort and destroy our ornamental plants, turning our gardens into mini war zones of sorts. They attack, we counterattack, they retreat to gather more forces, then sneak back to the front lines. We nuke them with all we have, and then turn around and find that they have battalions taking cover underneath leaves that look fine at first glance. All this spraying and poisoning is unhealthy for us and for the environment, so again, prevention is the key.

Inviting beneficial insects into the garden is one way to combat harmful insects, and feeding birds is another. Birds can control a multitude of pests, but first we must provide them with food, water and shelter. If we want to entertain birds, we must make the commitment of not using harmful pesticides. Birds and beneficial insects can and do control insect populations successfully, although it takes longer to see the results. We need to be good garden stewards, planting grasses and other bushy ornamentals for them to use as nesting materials, putting birdhouses in places safe out of reach of cats and other predators.

But all things considered, I’d rather garden here than anywhere else. My roots are here, running as deeply into the red clay soil as those of the old oak in the backyard. There is something comforting in knowing the neighbors and being able to recite my own family tree back to the fifth great-grandparent. How proud I am to be of my grandmother’s lineage, women who made huge gardens to feed their families all year long and still had the energy to grow beautiful flowers beside the porch to brighten their few spare moments. These women coined the term “pass-along plants” by sharing every bulb and cutting because there were no discount stores or fancy plant emporiums in which to buy them.

These ladies could trace the genus of their lilies just as well as other women traced their bloodlines. Knowing where your lilies come from is part and parcel of gardening wisdom, and a source of great pride to women who cultivate pass-along plants.

Gardening in the South is part of our heritage — it just seems to come with the territory. Making things beautiful is a way of life here, as Southern as sweet tea and hushpuppies.