Posts by Jenks Farmer
Philadelphia Quick Garden Trip
[Not a valid template] Just some pictures from yesterday’s quick trip that started in the 18th century garden of America’s first plantsman, John Bartrum. The second group of pictures is the joyful Chanticleer and, finally, the elegant Barnes Foundation’s original home. (Later, we’ll get a tour of the new downtown home of the Barnes Foundation…
Read MoreParking Gardens; Plants That That Fry & Flood
I was talking to this guy the other day, a great landscaper, who tries to be earth friendly, and he says he just doesn’t do jobs without an irrigation system. “There’s just no way you can plant it and guarantee it will live.” Well, I can. Here’s a link to a garden where we had…
Read MorePass-along Garden Design Terms
Some of the jargon in the garden world is like nails on a chalkboard to me. “Plant-material” comes to mind. Come on. They are plants. Just plants. Why add the hyphen? Why denigrate living, marvelous, moving beings to construction and commodity terms? But I love learning old terms, elegant, flowing words that perfectly express a…
Read MoreSouth Carolina Safari — Walterboro, SC
Here’s a great little road trip y’all can join in on– it includes romance, food, car culture, farming, blackwater swamps and book stores. Thursday evening, I’m doing a book reading (ok, sometimes it comes off as save-the-earth-preaching) at the Walterboro Farmer’s Market/Colleton County Museum. (click for time/directions). For Columbia, Beaufort, Charleston, Savannah friends, make an…
Read MoreStone Artistry as the Garden Floor
Nothing like watching a master of his artwork. I get to orchestrate and feel the energy of carpenters, masons, metal smiths on projects all working toward a shared goal– garden making. Watching can be mesmerizing. Do you know the phrase, “the eroticism of competence”? Those on a mission to make, to create, have the energy. …
Read MoreSugar Cane Mill. What Goes Around…
Before I went, I thought that working in Haiti might be depressing. But it wasn’t. I felt connected to my daddy– like I was living life off the land, the way he grew up– and that was amazing. The biggest day of connection involved an old style sugar cane press. We stopped on a little…
Read MoreAdapting Family Farms for a New Ecomony
I met about 150 women yesterday at a collective meeting of all the garden clubs around Concord, NC. The day was a filled with real plant lovers. Not only did they buy up a ton of crinum bulbs but more importantly, this group of women have collectively raised and distributed over $50,000 in the past…
Read MoreProtected: Early Pictures of Moore Farm
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Read MoreFrog Eyes & Sand Pears
I’m bracing myself for a cold, wet day at Goodness Grows nursery. Plant shopping is fun until the day turns bad. But the show must go on as the next 4 days of planting depend on today’s shopping — wet feet and all. One plant on my list is Tradescantia; which I learned as spiderwort.…
Read MorePeckerwood!
Tom and I spent an amazing 24 hours with an old friend, John Fairey, outside of Houston. John’s been there, gardening in the same place since the early 70s, but he says he’s still a South Carolinian. He named his garden after the fictional Beauregard Plantation in Auntie Mame (or if he needs a sweeter…
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