Join our very special guest in a cozy setting. Janisse Ray has inspired people across the world to look and connect with their place. This workshop focuses on writing journals, letters, even photo descriptions as a way to train and convey your connections to a places. March 16. More Information. Young local artist share their creations including painting, sculpture and music. Garden tours and plant sales and a pound cake bar too! April 11. RSVP Treat your Mom or any nurturing person you love to a relaxed, unique luncheon the farm. Our chef will offer canapés while we tour the lily fi ..read more

The crew will be on hand to share our love of these special plants. We’ve tried to pick plants with South Carolina connections and of course, plants that thrive in our zone. This is a members-only sale but you can join now and get to come. Our plants are priced at a great value. We have limited numbers so they’ll sell out fast! Join Historic Columbia and we’ll see you Thursday. Also, as a member, you’ll get a discount on the upcoming lecture with Jim Martin and Jenks Farmer. It’s our first presentation together in decades — we’ll discuss bulbs but also Jenks new book Garden Disruptors — which ..read more

Spend a morning with band of young artists on the lily farm. We’ve asked these local, Augusta high school artists to share their works and vision. They’ll be all over the farm, showing, selling, talking, and learning. We’re also pairing them with ‘mentors’ from Columbia — so they can build networks and have informal time to ask questions about art and the art world. All the regular lily farm plant stuff will be going on too. Jenks and Tom will share some of their garden design process and drawings too. May 27, Saturday. 8:30 until 2 pm. Rain or shine. The event is free. Arstist will sell their ..read more

I imagine he wore a fedora. One passed on or left accidentally by some traveler. His wife, the cook, the kitchen manager asked him to do it. Her kitchen, 100  yards from the house, revolved around a roaring fire. Like other outbuildings on the farm, it’s a practical, white, box of a building designed to do its job. She said, through the fatback and smoke kitchen air ‘Git out there and plant these flowers all the way ‘round.’ He took off his hat to bend, to squat to dig for her.  Also, bone white and designed to do a job, these flower bulbs outlasted them all. The kitchen rotted, the ..read more

The executive breakroom for our company is done up in luxurious, purple. On the floor, walls, rails, and from overhead, purple flowers drip. Not the cheapo, fake wisteria kind you’d see dripping in a Greek restaurant either. Curvaceous, velvety flowers literally drop onto your head sometimes. This breakroom, where lots of deep conversations, strategizing, and team and personal revelations happen, is really a tiny deck off the back office door of my house. The elaborate ‘ceiling’ consists of the stunning, rare, tough-as-nails Purple Jade Vine. This ‘room’  feels secluded. The vine walls pr ..read more

This story was published in Augusta Magazine, May 2022. The post appeared first on Jenks Farmer ..read more

Anticipation steeps on the farm. We, or maybe just me, are drawn to watching over our new seedlings as they mature into strong plants. I keep watch under the moonlight. I lend a helping hand to secure the grappling tendrils of a young Hyacinth Bean vine. Sometimes I go to this dark and mysterious place to experience nature fully and unperturbed. For a plant, the night is just as important as the day.    I want to introduce you to a few of these seedlings that I think you and your friends might like to try out for a late summer-fall planting. These plants are not only special for thei ..read more

Do you remember the first time you grew a plant from seed? Maybe it was a veggie, a flower, even a tree! Maybe its shape, size, color, texture, or smell might ring a bell. Or the memory of seeing the whites of your Mother’s eyes when you pulled what you thought was a weed to make way for your new baby seed. Maybe you learned something from that seed that season if you really stopped to pay attention. I remember mine, it was a Tuscan Kale. A tall lanky fella, with a funny hairdo.  At the time I was in the process of taking a break from a relationship (aka, getting dumped), and I needed a h ..read more

Years ago, my mentor, Bennett Baxley told me of his move to Bluffton, South Carolina. In the 50s, this tiny coastal village on the salty marshes of the May River struggled. A few wealthy folks kept quiet summer houses. Like poor people everywhere, folks looked to the wild for sustenance and income. With gunny sacks and buckets, they picked the leaves of an ankle-high weed. Bennet told me they’d haul it back to town, lay out these leaves to dry, then make them into tiny bales. During drying, the leaves got fragrant. The entire town Bennett recalled, wistfully, smelled of vanilla. Carolina Vanil ..read more

“We’ll plant the cypress grove over here. See? We’ll curve it this way.” I walk along the muddy bank, swinging my arms in a broad curve.   “Yeah, I like that. Blends the cypress pond into the garden. Dad’s cottage will go over there, on the point, where the lake turns east.” Mac looks to see his Daddy’s reaction, then he keeps on talking. “He’ll have nice morning sun on the porch. But Jenks, the elevation here might be wrong. Squat here, look at the horizon.” I squat. “I see it. When the earth-moving crew comes back tomorrow, ask them to take this six inches deeper.  That’ll kee ..read more