Quarterly
Newsletter
Volume 5-3, Fall 2016
Editor: Jeff Stevens
www.sepalms.org and www.facebook.com/sepalms
SPS Fall Meeting
Join us at 9:00 am on Saturday,
October 1, 2016, for the
Southeastern Palm Society’s fall
meeting. We’ll begin the day in
Anniston, Alabama, at the newlyfounded Longleaf Botanical
Gardens, which encompasses the
gardens of the Anniston Museum
of Natural History, the Berman
Museum of World History and
extensive new plantings at
Longleaf. The gardens are
legendary for their hardy palms,
Plant sale!
including some very unexpected
ones, and for their variety of
subtropicals, too.
The day will include tours of the impressive gardens of local plant
collectors Hayes Jackson and Connie Mack Dobbs. Hayes has established
a respected private botanical garden on his six acres of Alabama hillside,
SPS Fall Meeting
and Connie Mack has turned a generously-sized suburban lot into a
Saturday, October 1, 2016
subtropical showplace.
Longleaf Botanical Gardens (the
SPS meetings are informal, enjoyable and attended by people who
Anniston museum complex), the
love both native Southern palms and subtropical plants, as well as those
garden of Hayes Jackson, and the
we’ve adopted from far-away lands. Non-members are welcome to
garden of Connie Mack Dobbs
attend, too!
Anniston, Alabama
SPS Calendar
Agenda
9:00 am
10:00 am
Noon
1:00 pm
Plant sale in the parking lot of Longleaf Botanical Gardens
(drive past the two museums to the top of the hill)
Welcome and tour of the gardens
Lunch (on our own at local restaurants)
Visit the gardens of Hayes Jackson and Connie Mack Dobbs
Plant sale
We encourage everyone to bring something for the plant sale, and if
you can't bring a plant, just bring your appetite for plant shopping. To
get things rolling, here is a list of hard-to-fine plants that will be offered
for sale, provided by the efforts of Hayes and local volunteers. Prices
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Southeastern Citrus Exposition
November 18-19, 2016
Fort Valley, Georgia
Watch for more details.
2017 Meetings
Planning is underway
aren't available yet, but are sure to be reasonable. Look for:
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Aspidistra ‘Hayes' Stars’ - Speckled cast-iron plant from Thailand
Cassia corymbosa - Golden cassia, small tree with yellow flowers
Colocasia ‘Jack’s Giant’ - Large elephant ear
Colocasia ‘Maui Gold’ - Gold elephant ear
Colocasia ‘Maximus Gigante’ - Large elephant ear
Costus ‘Phoenix’ - Rare semi-hardy spiral ginger
Cycas revoluta x panzhihuaensis - Hybrid sago
Hedychium coronarium - White ginger lily
Hedychium yellow - Yellow ginger lily
Heliconia scheideana - Hardy Heliconia from Mexico
Musella lasiocarpa - Chinese yellow banana
Odontonema thyrsiflora - Firespike
Podocarpus macrophyllus ‘Lemon Sparkler’ - Conifer with yellow
new growth
Sabal minor ‘Blountstown Dwarf’ - Dwarf-dwarf palmetto from
Florida
Sabal minor ‘Wakulla Springs Dwarf’ - Dwarf-dwarf palmetto
from Florida
Trachycarpus ‘Bulgaria’ - Bulgarian form of windmill palm with
stiff leaves, hybrid?
Verbesina olsenii - Mexican crown beard
Zingiber mioga - Mioga ginger, hardy
Zingiber zerumbet - Pine cone ginger
Contacts SPS
www.sepalms.org
www.facebook.com/sepalms
For full addresses, see the
SPS Membership Directory.
President and editor of
Southeastern Palms
Tom McClendon
[email protected]
Vice president
Joe LeVert
[email protected]
Secretary, membership,
treasurer & webmaster
Jeff Stevens
[email protected]
Alabama director
Hayes Jackson
[email protected]
Georgia director
Will Fell, Jr.
[email protected]
North Carolina director
Keith Endres
[email protected]
Admission
Admission to Longleaf Botanical Gardens is free.
Locations
Longleaf Botanical Gardens [map]
920 Museum Drive (drive past museums to the top of the hill)
Anniston AL 36206
South Carolina director
In memory of Rick Davis
Tennessee director
David Cox
[email protected]
Director-at-large
Johnny Cochran
[email protected]
Hayes Jackson [map]
1300 Old Jackson Road
Anniston AL 36206
General counsel
Alex Woollcott
[email protected]
Connie Mack Dobbs [map]
2207 Ruth Court
Oxford AL 36203
Remember
Alabama is in the Central Time Zone and the day begins at 9:00 am
Central Time.
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SPS Summer Meeting
Atlanta Botanical Gardens hosted the SPS summer meeting on Saturday, August 27, 2016, with 20 members
and guests attending from Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. Photo: A kind gardener at ABG.
Memories
It’s with sadness that we report the passing of several Southeastern Palm Society members. Still, we
remember them with the joy we’ve shared in the enjoyment of the beauty of our plants and gardens. Have
you ever had a moment of wonder thinking about how we all met?
Alan Bills
Alan Morris Bills, 75, passed away on February 12, 2016 in Beaumont,
Texas. He was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England, and later
lived and gardened in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, before retiring to
Beaumont.
Alan was a founding member of the Southeastern Palm Society and
served as editor of Rhapidophyllum (now Southeastern Palms), from
1997 to 2000. He updated the journal from its original photocopied
sheet format to a fold-over booklet and introduced the first use of color
photos. He also provided articles on the palms and subtropicals he grew
in the Mt. Pleasant garden he shared with Mike Keating, and hosted
several SPS meeting there.
“Alan was a wonderful guy with a very gentle spirit and a gifted
memory.” remembers Tom McClendon. “Every time I saw him, he
would think to ask about members of my family by name I had
mentioned in passing.”
Alan was also generous with the palms he propagated, remember
several SPS members, including Johnny Cochran. “Alan gave me a single
leaf Caryota at the October 1999 meeting in Anniston. It is now about
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Alan Bills as remembered by
friends on Facebook.
11 feet tall in the pot and taxes my 9-foot basement as its winter
home.”
Alan is survived by family members in the United States and Canada.
William (Bill) Cawthon
William Lamar, Cawthon, Jr., of Laurel Oaks, Eufaula, Alabama, passed
away on March 16, 2016, at age 69. A long-time SPS member, he was
interested in a wide variety of plants and held an exceptional amount of
horticultural detail in his memory.
Bill studied at Emory University and the University of Georgia,
becoming a historian and an attorney.
To the joy of his friends, the South fascinated Bill, from its flora and
horticulture, to its history, culture and architecture. Many of us will
always remember his fascinating e-mail letters on subjects from
experimental plant hardiness and survival at Laurel Oaks, to the
condition and preservation of Southern courthouses and other historic
sites. Bill’s 1984 Georgia Master’s thesis was called “Clinton: County
Seat on the Georgia Frontier, 1808-1821,” and is cited in the New
Georgia Encyclopedia.
Bill Cawthon
Photo: legacy.com.
Charles Cole
Charles Clinton Cole, 80, passed away on March 30, 2015 in Sparta,
Tennessee. He lived and gardened with his wife Diane in nearby
Quebeck, where he began experimenting with hardy palms in USDA
Zone 7a/6b in the mid 1960s.
Will Taylor wrote about meeting Charles for the first time in 1995.
“He lives out in the backwoods on a narrow country road. You would
not expect to see palms, but out of the blue they appear: Sabal minor
everywhere.” (“Tennessee Palm Godfathers, Part 1,” Rhapidophyllum,
Vol. 6 No. 2, December 1998.) He also grew Trachycarpus fortunei,
Rhapidophyllum hystrix, Nannorrhops ritchiana and several other
species, protected in winter by cages or barrels filled with sawdust. He
kept meticulous notes on survival and contributed to Princeps, journal
of the International Palm Society.
And in the recurring theme of hardy palm generosity, Will also
remembers that Charles gave him his first Sabal minor (dwarf palmetto)
seedlings.
Charles Cole
Photo: Hunter Funeral Home.
Richard (Dick) George
Richard Schuyler George, 84, passed away March 8, 2016. He was born
in Atlanta, graduated from Northwestern University in 1955, served the
Air Force Reserve Command at Robins Air Force Base, where here
retired in 1989. He was also an Air Force Reservist, retiring as a colonel
in 1985 and was awarded the Legion of Merit.
Dick was also a past president of the Master Gardeners of Central
Georgia and founder of the acclaimed Quinta del Sol Gardens at the
home he shared in Macon with his wife Rusty.
He hosted the Southeastern Palm Society’s spring meeting in 2013.
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Dick George
Portrait by Austelle Hoyt Futch.
Many who attended remember the tour, his many garden
accomplishments and the entertaining and whimsical garden art.
A man of wide interests, Dick visited over 50 countries, many in
depth. He and Rusty hosted exchanged students for 11 years.
Dick is survived by his wife, twin sons, three grandchildren and one
great grandchild.
YuccaDo is Closing
YuccaDo Nursery is closing, writes Peckerwood Garden horticultural
director Adam Black, in the garden’s August newsletter. “We are sad to
report that legendary collector plant source YuccaDo Nursery recently
had announced it was ramping down toward eventually closing over the
upcoming months.”
The nursery has served “as an outlet for John Fairey and Carl
Schoenfeld’s Mexican collections, supplemented with Carl and Wade
Roitsch’s own collections from South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and
beyond. Originally formed 28 years ago as a partnership between John
and Carl, the business along with nursery manager Wade at the helm
was the exclusive source for unusual Mexican oaks, agaves, yuccas, and
other woody lilies, rain lilies, bromeliads and a variety of unusual trees,
shrubs and perennials.”
Many of us have ordered from YuccaDo over the years and feel a
sense of loss that this source of unusual plants won’t be there anymore.
Most of your editor’s maturing Mexican oak collection was sourced
from YuccaDo in the early 2000s and served as an inspiration for new
horticultural directions.
As of today YuccaDo still offers 174 varieties of unusual plants, and
many are discounted, so have a look at the remaining mail-order
inventory at www.yuccado.com.
Top: John Fairey in 2008
at Peckerwood Gardens.
Photo: Jeff Stevens
Center: Carl Schoenfeld
was the speaker at the
SPS winter meeting in
2004 in Savannah.
Photo: Jeff Stevens
Lower: Wade Roitch,
YuccaDo nursery
manager.
Photo: YuccaDo
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