Gardening is not my usual cup of tea. I love tomatoes and all the veggies, but my thumb is quite black when it comes to growing things. That being said, I spent the day wandering the Juniper Level Botanic Gardens with owner Tony Avent for the Home section of the New York Times and it was amazing. Avent is an explorer and breeder of plants, traveling the globe to find foreign plants and then spending years developing strains that will grow in the US.
The site of his nursery contains many greenhouses, as well as a botanical garden where you can see many of the plants he has to offer, as well as lots of others that Mr. Avent just likes and wants to prove can be grown in North Carolina.
A critic of much of the conventional wisdom of mainstream gardening media, Avent enjoys proving theories wrong and showing what can be done with a little work and know how.
Read the story here
See the NYT slideshow here