The first issue ofSouthern Livingappeared in February 1966.

I put out a post on my Grumpy Gardener Facebook page asking if anybody recognized this shot.

I got lots of answers.

How We Recreated the First Southern Living Cover

Now, we did have a couple of problems in recreating this cover.

For one thing, Hurricane Frederic happened down in Mobile.

So at this place in this neighborhood, a lot of the big trees were smashed to pieces.

Pieces are knocked over.

Also, there wasn’t one single azalea there.

We have a good relationship with the company called PDSI that came out with theEncore Azalea.

They had a crew of about eight people hauling these things around.

Now almost 60 years later we are still reflecting on that beautiful cover.