Augustus Jenkins Farmer III

Jenks Farmer is a renaissance plantsman. He fell for plant sciences at Clemson University, for botanical garden design at the University of Washington and for the natural world during an early education from a family of artists, musicians and farmers. For 20 years, Jenks led teams to plant and establish the vision for two of South Carolina's major botanical gardens; Riverbanks Botanical Garden and founding Horticulturist of Moore Farms. Through those and his designs for homes, museums and businesses have received awards and delighted hundreds of thousands visitors with the joyful, easy exuberance of hand crafted gardens. An engaging storyteller and teacher, he's established multiple internship programs and is talented at getting people of all ages and from all walks of life to get outside and get their hands dirty. He’s lectured for groups as varied as the NC State Agricultural faculty, the Smithsonian, Wave Hill, lots of Master Gardeners and of course, his grandmother’s Allendale Ladies Afternoon Reading Club. His writing has been published in journals, Organic Gardening, Horticulture and recently his photos in the Royal Horticulture Society magnolia quarterly. He is the author of Gardening with Crinum Lilies and Timber Press’ 2014 Deep Rooted Wisdom; Lessons Learned from Generations of Gardeners. Jenks lives with his family on an 18th century South Carolina farm. He’s proud to mesh the old with the new; on this this farm they operate a pioneering mail order nursery specializing in organically grown plants of the genus Crinum is simply called jenksfarmer.com.