‘Georgia Champions of Landscape Gardening’ make a splash in Mizzou Botanic Garden

Four high-profile gardening experts — all with ties to the Peach state — were on hand for Mizzou Botanic Garden’s annual member event. “Georgia Champions of Landscape Gardening” included a MUBG walkabout in the morning and a book signing, symposium and ice cream social in the afternoon. Pictured here, from left to right, are Allan Armitage, a UGA professor emeritus known internationally for his work with annual and perennial landscape plants, Vince Dooley, legendary former head football coach for the UGA Bulldogs who also has gained renown for his spectacular garden; Natalia Hamill, a brand and business development manager for Bailey Nurseries who attended both MU and UGA; Michael Dirr , a University of Georgia (UGA) professor emeritus and a legend in the world of horticulture for his work with woody landscape plants; and Pete Millier, director of Mizzou Botanic Garden.

 

Annual event draws interested gardeners and supporters from around the state

To raise awareness of their mission and attract new members, Mizzou Botanic Garden (MUBG) and Friends of MUBG annually sponsor a program featuring a garden expert or experts of note. The 2018 program, held on Sunday, Sept. 23, featured “Georgia Champions of Landscape Gardening” and included both an MUBG Walkabout with featured guest speakers Michael Dirr, Allan Armitage, Vince Dooley and Natalia Hamill, and a symposium and ice cream social with this team of high-profile gardening celebrities, all of whom have ties to the Peach State.

Dirr, a University of Georgia (UGA) professor emeritus and a legend in the world of horticulture for his work with woody landscape plants, and Dooley, legendary former head football coach for the UGA Bulldogs who also has gained renown for his and wife Barbara’s spectacular garden, arrived early and spent time with MU students.

Dirr said he considers being able to motivate and inspire students to be one of his greatest accomplishments. And Dooley, who audited a variety of courses during his coaching career at UGA, was one of Dirr’s students.

“Twenty years ago, I didn’t know a grapefruit from a gladiola but I was always curious about trees and plants,” Dooley said. “I took one of Dirr’s courses and one led to another and then another. He’s enthusiastic and he’s always learning.”

Friday morning, longtime friends and gardening companions Dirr and Dooley spent time with groups of Mizzou freshmen to share a little back and forth horticultural inspiration before being treated to a tour of the botanic garden.

“I absolutely love going to gardens because you’re always finding something you don’t have,” Dooley said.

“I actually discovered a tree I was unfamiliar with — a water elm, Planera aquatica, — on my tour of campus,” Dirr said. Both praised the beauty of the campus garden and the efforts of those responsible.

Armitage, a UGA professor emeritus known internationally for his work with annual and perennial landscape plants, joined his UGA associates and MUBG Director Pete Millier ahead of Sunday’s program for a Mizzou Tigers vs. Georgia Bulldogs football game. Though the Bulldogs prevailed on the field, Missouri gardeners attending Sunday’s events were also big winners.

Walk and talk highlights

Hamill, a brand and business development manager for Bailey Nurseries who attended both MU and UGA, joined the UGA trio to lead a garden walkabout for a group of 50 participants on Sunday morning.

After introductions, the group began their tour with a look at what was growing in large container plantings south of Jesse Hall.

“Scent is coming back,” Armitage said, referencing popcorn cassia, Senna didymobotrya — a tall, golden-bloomed tropical plant with a common name derived from the scent of its leaves.

After some gentle ribbing from his UGA colleagues after he urged everyone in the group to pick a leaf and rub it between their fingers, Armitage said, “The term ‘serious gardener’ is an oxymoron.”

All agreed that MUBG’s seven son flower, Heptacodium miconioides, makes an outstanding garden specimen. Hamill referred to the large deciduous shrub that blooms in the late summer or early fall as “a kind of modern crepe myrtle.” Its purple-red fruits, showy rose-colored calyces and exfoliating bark add to its stature.

Dirr noted the underappreciated strength of Amsonia hubrichtii and some newer amsonia cultivar introductions for gardens. A cornelian cherry dogwood, Cornus mas, received a high rating from all for its very early spring color, and showy red fruits.

Armitage, who promotes storytelling as a way to help people recall garden details — as illustrated by his books, “Legends in the Garden” and “Of Naked Ladies and Forget-Me-Nots” — demonstrated the “phlox test” to participants. After calling out all of the plants that are referred to as phlox he said, “True phlox have detached tubes,” and held a tubed petal aloft.

The tour highlighted a number of hydrangeas. Hamill’s Bailey Nurseries affiliation and the company’s role in marketing and distributing Dirr’s hydrangea introductions made Hamill and Dirr, author of “Hydrangeas for American Gardens,” a perfect team to discuss them.

“No one was selling Hydrangea macrophylla,” Dirr said. “We [at UGA] started looking for something different: disease resistance, re-bloom and cold hardiness and came up with ‘Endless Summer’. Since its 2004 launch, 27 million have sold.”

The pair discussed the increasing vital role of marketing in horticulture and the subsequent hydrangea introductions, when Dirr began showing participants how they could easily propagate the plant.

“Everything he’s showing you is illegal,” Hamill inserted, good naturedly but firmly. With laughs all around, the group moved on.

Dirr pointed out baptisia, a native plant commonly known as false indigo.

“One the reasons this plant is not more popular is because in garden nurseries, it looks like a couple of sticks in a container,” he said, reiterating the role marketing can play in the sale of plants.

“In the native plant world, people are asking for them,” Armitage said of baptisia, and added that there have been a number of excellent cultivars developed. “One of my favorites is the yellow-blooming ‘Carolina Moonlight’,” he said. Hybridized native plants often are referred to as “nativars”, a term coined by Armitage.

Dirr identified a Viburnum x birkwoodii and spoke briefly about the broad diversity in the viburnum species, the subject of his book, “Viburnums: Flowering Shrubs for Every Season.”

As the group moved toward the bright display of flowers on the north side of Jesse Hall, the last leg of the tour, Dirr took the opportunity to bemoan the fact that there is a decline in plant breeding programs across the country.

“Color is one of the things that will never go away,” Armitage said in reference to brilliantly blooming salvia plants. “This one is ‘Mystic Spires’. It’s one of the best. Salvia is a good pollinator-attracting plant.

After talking about the cannas and coleus in the display and the plant’s new cultivars’ increasing preference or sun he said, “With plants, there is no ‘liking’, as in, ‘It likes shade.’ or ‘It likes sun.’ It’s more about what plants will tolerate.”

The morning walkabout was followed by an afternoon book signing and symposium with the featured guests, as well as an ice cream social.

Officially designated the Mizzou Botanic Garden in 1999, the University of Missouri campus in Columbia charges no admittance fees to its very public 735-acre garden, instead relying on gifts and memberships in the Friends of MUBG for support.

Alumni, friends and organizations wishing to support the Mizzou Botanic Garden's mission and growth or to become members of the Friends group may contact the garden at (573) 882-4240 or e-mail gardens@missouri.edu

Story by Jan Wiese-Fales • Photos by Robert Weaver