Ta-da! A garden smushed between the Snelling Dining Hall, the Wilson Pharmacy building, and West Green Street on UGA campus. The garden was the creation of Allan Armitage, a world renowed herbaceous plant guru a professor of horticulture at the university. He took over what used to be an abandoned parking lot and created this on a whim and it has become one of the premier spots for seed companies the world over to be trialed. Everything grown in these gardens is grown for a purpose--to determine their suitability for the gardening public. All the plants are monitored every two weeks throughout the growing season (April/May to October-ish) and the "winners" eventually make it to retail nurseries to be planted in green thumb yards all over the country. Most of the plants are annuals, but tropicals and perennials are trialed as well.
I was able to meet Allan Armitage when I worked for Color-Burst, which was neat considering he something of a legend in horticulture. My old boss at Color-Burst was big on using some of the
Athens Select cultivars that came directly from Mr. Armitage's progagation efforts--plants uniquely selected for their tolerance of the southeast's heat and humidity. One summer I was put in charge of the Color-Burst trial garden (our own small scale copy cat garden) and was asked to drive to a nursery in Watkinsville (little town outside Athens) to pick up six plants--yep I made an hour and a half drive for six plants. The plants were some of the cream of the crop selections from the trial garden and were only available on a small scale at local nurseries. That is a good definition of devotion--or crazy.
Today I am grateful for a bike ride at dusk to the State Botanical Garden as a break after seven hours in the studio! (Seven hours in the studio is ALSO a good definition of devotion--or crazy, take your pick.)
Ta-da! A garden smushed between the Snelling Dining Hall, the Wilson Pharmacy building, and West Green Street on UGA campus. The garden was the creation of Allan Armitage, a world renowed herbaceous plant guru a professor of horticulture at the university. He took over what used to be an abandoned parking lot and created this on a whim and it has become one of the premier spots for seed companies the world over to be trialed. Everything grown in these gardens is grown for a purpose--to determine their suitability for the gardening public. All the plants are monitored every two weeks throughout the growing season (April/May to October-ish) and the "winners" eventually make it to retail nurseries to be planted in green thumb yards all over the country. Most of the plants are annuals, but tropicals and perennials are trialed as well. 
I was able to meet Allan Armitage when I worked for Color-Burst, which was neat considering he something of a legend in horticulture. My old boss at Color-Burst was big on using some of the Athens Select cultivars that came directly from Mr. Armitage's progagation efforts--plants uniquely selected for their tolerance of the southeast's heat and humidity. One summer I was put in charge of the Color-Burst trial garden (our own small scale copy cat garden) and was asked to drive to a nursery in Watkinsville (little town outside Athens) to pick up six plants--yep I made an hour and a half drive for six plants. The plants were some of the cream of the crop selections from the trial garden and were only available on a small scale at local nurseries. That is a good definition of devotion--or crazy. 
Today I am grateful for a bike ride at dusk to the State Botanical Garden as a break after seven hours in the studio! (Seven hours in the studio is ALSO a good definition of devotion--or crazy, take your pick.)
2 comments:
When you say studio, does that mean that you are designing? I'd love to hear more about that.
I love that your school has abandoned parking lots. I'm pretty sure they're outlawed in The Jungle. Empty parking lots that is.
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