Saving a Garden from Becoming a Parking Lot
December 2002
“Momma” moved to the country 50 years ago, when she and Daddy got married. She never wanted to live in the country but Daddy promised that he’d always keep her in a new car so she’d never be stuck out here.” Says her daughter Carol, “this is the only place I’ve ever lived and this is the first time I’ve moved in my life.”
Over the past 50 years, Mrs. Emily Mason made a garden of the cotton field where she and Mr. Mason settled in the1950’s She’s still active the South Carolina Garden Club and still loves her plants but she’s moving on and the garden is scheduled to be turned into a road and a massive housing development on January 1, 2003. “ I can’t look back, there’s no point in that, I’ve loved these plants but its time to go somewhere else, I’m just glad y'all could save them and move them to a new home.”
Over the past five months, the Moore Farm crew, the Three Oaks Landscape Crew of Johns Island SC and the E G and Company tree spade crew have prepared plants to be moved just 40 miles down the road to Moore Farm in Lake City, SC.

Mrs. Mason was a Garden Club flower show judge and a Master Gardener. Her garden is full of plants that trace the trends in garden shows and flower competitions. Of course, lots of camellias, many of which have their awards from Camellia shows in Sumter, Columbia, Orangeburg and Charleston. Camellia culture and competition may have reached its heyday in the 1960's. Forty years later, plants ordered as cuttings and tiny specimens from far-away growers are big, beautiful shrubs and small trees. Even if their flowers never go to a show again, these stately plants will add maturity and history to the newly establishing gardens of Moore Farms.
In keeping with the trends of the times, Mrs. Mason once planted a hybrid tea garden, which is now fading the Carolina humidity. But the jewels that thrive and grow to monstrous dimensions are old shrub and rambler roses. Along a 100 foot strand of wire fence, studded with black creosote post, Mrs. Mason planted climber and ramblers. This fence line marked the back of the yard, separating it from the pasture and fruit orchard. Several of the large ramblers, including a Lady Banks rose will now have a home in the rose field of Moore Farm.
Since Mrs. Mason did lots of arranging, there are plenty of evergreens and flowering plants to fill winter and summer vases. in arrangements -- when that was a big part of her life. Many of them, a fragrant olive tree, a windmill palm, an oakleaf hydrangea that spreads out 20 feet, vitex, 3 different varieties of acuba and clumps of Florida Jessamine, will soon claim Moore Farms as their new home.
Mr. Mason was a gardener of sorts, too. He did more than just “man’s work” says Mrs. Mason. His interest in small fruits is still evident in the huge clumps, that used to be rows, of high-bush blueberries now grace the back field with their red-gold winter color. A giant, 25-foot tall paw paw, figs and pears were all but taken over by privet, still produced enough fruit this summer for some adventurous crew member to eat and take a few home to share with their families
When Mr. Mason worked on the railroad, he’d sometimes claim plants that had been lost in shipping or left on the train. One unknown species of Amorpha is now a 15 foot high, 25 wide clump. We have moved it to Moore Farm to add much needed airiness to an area of evergreens.
This move, this garden rescue, all came about by lots of lucky coincidence. Penny, Mrs. Mason’s daughter, met Mrs. Brunson of Brunson's Nursery at a party in spring in of 2002. The talked about the tragedy of mature plants being lost to development – it’s happening all over the South. Mrs. Brunson remembered that story and told us a few weeks later when Paul Rae, Moore Farm’s manager, and I were in Brunson’s Nursery. Mrs. Brunson asked if we’d be interested in the plants.
Without a doubt. We started almost immediately by asking the Three Rivers landscape contractors to install a drip system to the plants that we wanted to move. By avoiding drought stress in the summer, we could improve our success rate for winter transplants. We tended to the roots in other ways, as well: drenching the plants with a seaweed based fertilizer which claims to stimulate rooting and with a very light application of another root-growth stimulator, Dip and Grow. Our goal was to stimulate new, feeder roots around the trunk and what would later be our root balls. Eli from E.G and Co. came over to advise about root pruning and plans for the move.
In mid summer, Wess from E.G. and Company brought a 60 inch spade and moved a 25-foot tall Windmill Palm. It never flinched. In early December, with bulldozers clearing land beyond the house, we moved the rest of the plants.
These plants of Mr and Mrs. Emily Mason, represent the major trends over the past 50 years of horticulture in South Carolina’s Low Country. A new and horrific trend is happening now: as the owners of these gardens move on to smaller homes, the history and specimen plants there in are being forgotten or worse cleared away. On Moore Farm, we're making a cool new garden for South Carolina. We'll grow the current trends right along side these specimens of Carolina garden history.

Epilogue: Three Months Later.
 

Story by Jenks Farmer.

Click here to view more photos from the original garden and the relocation process.