Heirloom plants, as they are now called, were the foundation of a revived interest in cottage gardens that slowly developed in the '90s and have grown into a garden specialty spawning coffee-table books, mail-order suppliers, accessory lines and neighborhood nurseries. And these flowers are being planted not only by owners of cottages but also at suburban tract homes and million-dollar mansions.

As horticulturists, nursery professionals and landscape designers took another look at old-fashioned annuals and perennials, they realized that these unheralded plants are still around for reasons beyond nostalgia. They're survivors. Those unsexy species that were common in 19th- and early-20th-century dooryards have survived tests more daunting than the most rigorous university trial plots -- namely neglect, even abandonment.

Today's cottage gardeners have been joined by a growing throng of veteran practitioners and neophytes alike looking for plants that are just plain successful in their home climate.

''That they have been time-tested over a long period makes their use in today's gardens a compelling choice,'' says Dr. William C. Welch, a Texas A&M University professor and author of several gardening books.

''They wouldn't be around today if they were a bunch of wimps. That's why we find them in cemeteries and at abandoned homesteads.''

In fact, Fort Worth, Texas, entrepreneur Randy Weston started his nursery business on the grounds of a long-vacant estate. He created a containerized inventory of perennials, shrubs and trees from the overgrowth for his Weston's Gardens in Bloom.

The estate, unoccupied for 25 years, was lush with plants that had not only survived but also had multiplied: day lilies, oxalis, Mexican petunia, purple coneflower, spiderwort, salvias, rock rose and more. Weston also dug up starts of coral honeysuckle, American beautyberry, hummingbird bush, flowering quince and bush honeysuckle, plus trees such as vitex, jujube, desert willow and native persimmon.

''A lot of things were planted in the '30s that have survived without much human intervention,'' says Weston. ''They're what I believe in. If you want to be a dedicated gardener, these old-fashioned plants are the easiest to grow.''

With the demise of locally owned neighborhood nurseries in favor of superstores that offer acres of landscaping standards, many old-fashioned favorites disappeared from commercial stocks. Whereas the English, for instance, have a centuries-old tradition of gardening that goes with their centuries-old manors and cottages, Americans fell under the spell of landscaping trends. With the building boom of the postwar '50s and '60s, when subdivision after subdivision was carved out of agricultural land, people didn't inherit gardens when they moved from one urban house to another. They were faced, instead, with bare earth. Lush expanses of lawn, foundation plantings and ground covers for year-round greenery became fashionable. They also were easier to manage and maintain. Cottage gardens have a seasonal peak, and they need attention to keep them blooming in the growing season and tidy when they are dormant. House-proud Americans learned to prefer year-round, low-maintenance vegetation.

Still, a contingent of American gardeners kept the old-fashioned plants and flowers going. The driving force, at first, was sentiment. It might have been plants your grandmother grew, the gardenia your mother planted under your bedroom window or the daffodil bulbs an elderly neighbor offered as a welcome. A young homeowner with a new landscape to fill in might be given a ''start'' of rapidly multiplying plants such as bouncing bet, butter and eggs, bearded iris or cannas. Maybe a senior gardener, part of a generation of less-wasteful consumers, potted up volunteer althea or rooted rose cuttings in recycled containers to share.

Once you associate a particular plant with a person or a memory, you take care of it in hopes of keeping it alive. Those sentimental specimens, in turn, multiply, and you make a neighborly offering of your own one day to a newcomer or a friend's recently married daughter.

So-called ''pass-along'' plants are a popular subgroup of heirlooms that have made their way across generations, across neighborhoods, even across continents via the garden fence. They may be annual, biennial, perennial, bulb, shrub, vine or tree, but their common characteristic is how easy they are to propagate and cultivate.

With the 1993 publication of the enormously popular book that brought the phrase into garden parlance, ''Passalong Plants'' by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing, heirloom garden flowers began to be reconsidered.

Their re-emergence was not an overnight sensation. Even if the idea of old-fashioned cottage plants appealed to a gardener, the material was not readily available in nurseries. The cottage gardener was obliged to shop by mail, either for seeds or, more rarely, for young plants.

What was a specialty product in the '90s, however, is gaining ground. Now local nurseries proudly advertise their old-fashioned offerings and plan special events around them. ''If we like something and can't find it, we propagate it here,'' says Rosa Finsley, owner of Kings Creek Gardens in Cedar Hill, Texas. ''A lot of things are new to Dallas but have been used in other locations. We try them out in the display gardens.''

In addition to hardy bloomers such as day lilies, poppies and larkspur, the nursery carries old-fashioned shrubs and trees such as flowering quince, vitex and winter honeysuckle. Finsley also noted bulbs rescued from Southern gardens oxblood lilies and naked ladies that are slowly being brought back into commerce.

''Learning about the heritage of these plants is what is so intriguing,'' says Beth Patterson of Blooming Colors Nursery, in Coppell and Grapevine, Texas. ''Passalong Plants is what got the whole ball rolling. If you read that book, you'll want everything Grandma grew.''

Welch of A&M attributes heirloom plants' popularity to gardeners' maturation.

''We want gardens that have a sense of place. Texans' respect for and interest in cultural heritage is increasing. Anyone can enter into it personally because just about everybody has plants'' they remember.

Find a garden with old-fashioned flowers blooming, and you're likely to find a memory.

''Grandmother had standing honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) by the gate, where you could smell it coming and going,'' says Welch, explaining its presence in his own Central Texas garden.

''And she always had reseeding annuals, like zinnias, marigolds, cockscomb and globe amaranth. Grandmother would pick globe amaranth in late summer and bring it into the house as an everlasting. In the spring, when they faded, she shredded them and they were that year's seed crop.''

''My grandmother would go looking in the bar ditches and cemeteries to see what wildflowers were surviving,'' recalls Weston, who offers native plants at his business.

''That's a good gardener -- people who adapt what works rather than force-fit something.

''A lot of people of my generation say their parents didn't teach them about the soil and the natural world. Our parents were becoming suburbanites rather than rural. That link is something we need to give to our children, that link to the soil. They won't spend time on the psychiatrist's couch if they'll just garden.''

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Books

''Antique Flowers: A Guide to Using Old-Fashioned Species in Contemporary Gardens'' by Katherine Whiteside (Villard Books, $29.95) Grandma's Garden by Laura Martin (Longstreet Press, $12.95)

''Grandmother's Garden: The Old-Fashioned American Garden 1865-1915'' by May Brawley Hill (Harry N. Abrams, $34.65)

''Passalong Plants'' by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing (The University of North Carolina Press, $21.95)

''Perennial Garden Color: Perennials, Cottage Gardens, Old Roses and Companion Plants'' by William C. Welch (Taylor Publishing, $29.95)

''The Southern Heirloom Garden'' by Greg Grant and William C. Welch (Taylor Publishing, $29.95)

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Mail-order seeds & plants

The Flower and Herb Exchange, 3076 North Winn Road, Decorah, IA 52101. www.seedsavers.org

Flower Scent Gardens, 14820 Moine Road, Doylestown, OH 44230. www.flowerscentgardens.com

Heirloom Seeds, P.O. Box 245, West Elizabeth, PA 15088. www.heirloomseeds.com

Old House Gardens-Heirloom Bulbs, 536 Third St., Ann Arbor, MI 48103. www.oldhousegardens.com

Perennial Pleasures Nursery of Vermont, P.O. Box 147, East Hardwick, VT 05836. www.antiqueplants.com

Petals From the Past, 16034 County Road 29, Jemison, AL 35085. www.petalsfromthepast.com

Seeds of Change, P.O. Box 15700, Santa Fe, NM 87592-1500. www.seedsofchange.com

Select Seeds: Antique Plants, 180 Stickney Hill Road, Union, CT 06076-4617. www.selectseeds.com

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, P.O. Box 460, Mineral, VA 23117. www.southernexposure.com

Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants at Monticello, P.O. Box 316, Charlottesville, VA 22901. www.twinleaf.org

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Heirloom plants

Four o'clock (Mirabilis jalapa) Grows and flowers quickly from seed. The trumpet-shaped flowers, smelling of orange blossoms, open at 4 p.m.

Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) Purpurea and other forms thrive in fertile, shady areas. Here they are treated as annuals best planted in fall for spring.

Morning glory (Ipomoea) A packet of seeds produces vines that race across a fence or up a network of twine to shade a porch swing.

Flowering tobacco (Nicotiana sylvestris) Perfumed flowers erupt from the 4-foot stalk like a shower of white sparks on the Fourth of July.

Bee balm (Monarda didyma) Newer mildew-resistant varieties are favored over the wild form. Their mop-headed flowers bloom in pinks to purples.

Larkspur (Consolida ambigua) Larkspur, which freely reseeds, requires cold weather for germination and early growth, so fall sowing is best.

Poppy (Papaver somniferum) Sown in fall, they will reseed generously if you leave the ground undisturbed. The fragile, tissue-thin flowers will stop traffic.

Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) Grows in sun or shade, dry soil or moist. Wild spiderwort is usually blue and more invasive than new cultivars that bloom white, magenta and purple.

Hollyhock (Alcea) With their dominating height and large, coarse leaves, hollyhocks go to the back of the garden, where they can multiply.

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(c) 2003, The Dallas Morning News.