Posts by Jenks Farmer
When Modern Landscaping Practices Kill Perfectly Good Plants
I spent the day pulling up thousands of dollars worth of tea olive and other shrubs, then filling a 33 foot long dumpster with them. 15 feet wide and 250 feet long, the shrub border that failed was planted 5 years ago, with really nice plants, by someone else. It’s a shame, it makes me…
Read MoreJenks & Tom’s Road Trip to Raleigh
Serial Internships & Old Dorm Stories
You know how they have classes for college freshmen intended to weed out the slackers? Well, back then, I was a self weeder. After an academically embarrassing freshman year, I left Clemson to do an internship with the Greenery on Hilton Head Island; spraying all the chemicals it takes to keep that fantasy world green.…
Read MoreNew Cover
Hey, We got a new cover for the book! Choosing it has been an interesting experience, I’ll write about it all one day. Today is gardening. Tomorrow morning I’ll write about our new intern. But what do you think? Our professional photographer friend from Augusta, Sharon Wilson took the pic.
Read MoreFall Garden Visiting Slide Show
November has been a busy time with garden visiting and talking and trading plants and such. Here’s a little slide show of a few of the gardens we’ve visited. We’re still dividing plants, no it’s not too cold. But next week is sharing time again; on Monday, Bob Polomski & Jenks talk about Deep Rooted…
Read MoreFlorence Museum
Take a few minutes to enjoy progress and planting at the new The Florence Museum, where I was asked to create an organic, free form garden in a huge rectangular courtyard which is surrounded by rectangular buildings. And, where the plants all have ties to the geographical origins of items in the museum collection! It’s…
Read MoreWhy We Grow Our Own; Old Way Just Works Better for Propagating Crinum Lilies
Oh Man That Hurts! Two years of cultivation and care and now we have to dump all of these crinum lily bulbs. Why? Because the person I bought them from sold them as one thing, but in actuality, they are a mix of colors and habits of growth. Since they were tiny products of a…
Read MoreField Notes Fall Garden Work (on the Lily Farm)
A friend sent this text the other day, “can I be honest u need to write more about gardening n less about strolling w old guys.” Just like that; he didn’t wait for me to answer the can i be honest part….. But here goes. What I do in the dirt is a friggin’ lot…
Read MorePeople Who Show Us The World
In 1938 Buzzy’s second grade teacher made his class listen to Wagner and walk through gardens of neighborhood ladies and gentlemen. Some of the boys sneered. Buzzy, always sensitive , pretty much shocked me when he said, “Once or twice, on the playground, I found the boys who laughed and interrupted and I, (he whispers…
Read MoreEmphisis on Visiting
From the minute we knocked on her door, we laughed. I took a friend from up north to visit a friend in Georgia last week. Ostensibly, we went to see her garden. We knocked, she greeted. But since we were a few minutes early she said, “Walk around the front garden and I’ll be right…
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