A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach - January 3, 2022 - Jenks Farmer on Crinum Lilies

Uh-oh, now I’ve learned that there’s another plant I didn’t think I could grow in my Northern garden, but it sounds like I can. Hello, Crinum lilies, you gorgeous size-XL bulbs that I thought were the domain of Southern gardeners only, and not for me. 

A new book about them by Jenks Farmer is teaching me otherwise, and making me want to order some bulbs.  

Augustus Jenkins Farmer, aka Jenks Farmer, is a longtime horticulturist and garden designer who’s former director of Riverbank Botanical Garden in South Carolina and author of a couple of previous books. These days, he is, true to his surname, also a farmer specializing in growing and selling crinum lilies and a few other goodies from his organically managed 18^th-century South Carolina farm. His new self-published book is called “Crinum: Unearthing the History and Cultivation of the World’s Biggest Bulb.”