“I don’t give a damn about my bad reputation.” — Joan Jett
Joan Jett’s predecessor, legendary rocker, Patti Smith, got pigeonholed as “Godmother of Punk.” Now a respected poet and author, she says, “It’s an honorable label; it’s just not the only label that I want. I don’t mind if people say that, but I do object when people don’t really understand the full realm of the areas that I work in.

Crinum collectors—Cole Mitchell, Jenks Farmer and intern Sam Engler.
Every once in a while, at dawn or during a hot summer afternoon nap, still a little under the waves of mindfulness, a hurt little boy surfaces. He’s kind of fey. He remembers being left unpicked for basketball, kickball, and pretty much any other team except the 4H dairy calf show team. He remembers the punk teenage years, with no friends in the small farming community, staring at his makeup and mohawks, scoffing at his pointed words. Some of those words still won’t go away. His bad reputation stuck. Thirty years later, the old Farmer’s Club, where Daddy’s portrait hangs on the wall, still won’t ask him, me, to join.
In sleepy moments, in moments of self-doubt, reputation hurts. Pigeonholes do, too.
There’s a fine line of understanding between a bad reputation and a pigeonhole. Both cause hurt, even if it’s just a twinge of pain, regret, anger in an unexpected moment. Both define us by a moment, apart, a little thing, and the hurt comes because we know the whole. We know our whole like no one else ever will.
…
“Oh, you’re the crinum guy!” She says with delight, this Master Gardener conference-goer who’s just walked up to my booth. I cringe. I smile. I say something lame like, ‘Yeah, but I like all kinds of plants.” And I hear Patti Smith, “People don’t understand the full realm of the areas I work in.” I want to tell this lady more about my realm, but I need to sell her a crinum. So, I ignore the tiny hurt and launch into the crinum song.

Jenks Farmer’s very first Orange River lily- Crinum bulbispermum – is over80-years old.
On crinum’s behalf, I never fail to rise to the defense. They struggle with a bad reputation, too. I hear things like; “Oh, I don’t want one of those floppy old things, they’ll smother my begonias” or “I already know those, when I was a child, they were in cemeteries, ditches, and sharecropper shacks.” “They only grow in the South.” Crinum lilies get pigeonholed too.
No eye-rolling from me. In all sincerity I want people to understand the full and fabulous world of these crazy geophytes. I launch in, “You know the ones you remember from ditches are remnants. Back in the Victorian era, collectors clamored for dozens of spectacular cultivars. Highly valued, outrageously priced, totally different from those ditch lilies. Look at this delicate one….” She’s hooked. “Sure we take American Express. Can I get your email address, too?” Another tactic leads the Master Gardener lady on a journey around the world. I tell her about wading through aquatic crinum in a blackwater river in Africa, I tell her about our tiny, 4-inch tall, nocturnal species from India. She buys the African one with green buds.
Sometimes, I hate my reputation as the Crinum guy. But it stuck. In the 80s, its bad reputation completely marred the genus to all but a few old guys scattered around the South. They loved and preserved crinum. They saved them. They, and their obsession, seduced me. But unlike them, I had writing skills, speaking skills, and youth, and a brand-new botanical garden to mix crinum into showy displays. I had a platform. I got to publicize their obsession, to counter the bad reputation, to put a cemetery plant, a poverty plant, front, and center with trendy plants. For the next thirty years, I’ve felt the thrill of discovery. The plant pulled me into the wilds of Madagascan rivers, overgrown cemeteries, cloistered libraries, and hidden rare book shops. It’s pulled me to learn its ecology as well as cultural and spiritual uses.
Damn. I am a geek. I do belong in that pigeonhole.
Just as punk teen me wanted to challenge and piss off the old farmers and just like he established that bad reputation, I helped create the crinum guy pigeonhole. In fact, it’s a fantasy to go further with it. If I were an academic or trust funder, I could revel in it, could have made a career of it.
There are Ph. D.s to be written, history, anthropology, ethnobotanies, the fragrances, pharmacology, and moth interactions with this complex bulb. This plant that turtles up to become a perfect carrying case. Fleshy arm-long roots crinkle up, continuously growing leaves pull inside and the bronze tunic thickens and protects like a nice leather weekend bag. Crinum travel well. For millennia, they’ve been carried with migrants, medicine men, sailors, enslaved people, little old garden ladies, and the modern international bulb trade. Want to do a Ph.D. on hoo-doo, hybridization or alkaloids? This is your plant.

Crinum ‘Ellen Bosanquet’ in the Atlanta Botanical Garden
But I have to have a job. Student loan, mortgage, truck payment, food, payroll, and life, cost. And I love traveling to remote places, which isn’t cheap. A crinum obsession is not a job. Yes, I’ve sold trains full of them, lectured and wrote about them. But that small part of my income stream overshadows my primary income from garden design, estate, and farm planning. No fortune needed or desired but I gotta pay the bills. As a self-employed person, I’ll never really be able to retire, but maybe one day I can focus only on my obsession, I can really put my heart and soul, solely into crinum.
…
I lean on a lesson learned on an acid trip inside the cathedral of shaggy bark columns of Douglas fir, on the Olympic Peninsula. It was a perfect Aldous Huxley Door of Perception moment. As a graduate student in Seattle, I was constantly called, “the Southern boy”. One of my roommates, Keith, the Hydrangea Guy, cackled at my accent. While Jerry, the OG Butterfly Gardener Guy, saved my Momma’s messages on the machine and would do hilarious lip syncs to them.
On this trip, we descended through that forest, toward the cold Pacific beach, getting higher and higher. I got warm, I took off my coat; hid it in some sword ferns. Then I shed another layer. Not physical, I shed my Southern layer. On the beach, lolling around in shallow cold waves, I let go of my gardener layer, too. Layer after layer, perceptions, pigeonholes, and reputations floated away. As I started to soar over the foggy waves, wet rocks, and sculpted tree stumps, I asked my friend, “Do we even have names?” Then, “Can we put those layers back on? Can we go back?” I meant, could we go back up, get our jackets and sit by the fire. But my friend, an experienced trip guide, took us into the metaphysical.
“Yes, and No,” he said. “You can put the layers back on. But now that you understand that they are layers, the answer to your second question is No. You can never go back.”
…
The punk boy doesn’t come around much. His military field jacket has long been put away. But the little boy who loved flowers is here all the time. Each April, when his first crinum, the one he got in 1974, comes into flower, he soars. Feyboy, flowerboy, inquisativeboy. Over the decades, he pestered the old folks who lived here in the 1940s. He knows now that his first crinum was once someone else’s first, that the bulb is over 90 years old now, and he even has vintage photographs. He understands looking back and going back differ. That worrying about what they think wastes energy. That little flower boy found a bunch of other flower folks who appreciate the full realm, and he kind of likes it when flower friends call him crinum guy.
Jenks Farmer is a horticulturist and writer in South Carolina. He threw down the gauntlet by naming his new book, Crinum — Unearthing the History and Cultivation of the Worlds Biggest Bulbs. There are certainly challengers for the title but he says, “Google doesn’t know everything. Let’s see the pictures.”
What an uplifting read over my coffee today— thank you. They call it ‘brand’ these days, but it is just as confining, and superficial. I was fooling around with a list of 20 underused plants in response to Scott’s overused list and crinum was at the very top. You introduced me to it at one of those same functions where your crinum guy hat was securely fastened, but luckily I bought your beautiful book too, and was introduced to those layers. It’s one of the best out there for gardeners figuring out their ‘why’, but it’s an incredibly useful how-to as well. -MW.
I should add that I’m talking about Deep Rooted Wisdom. Looking forward to this next one! — MW
I like the image of a crinum hat…
LOVE my crinum, I bought 2 at the Chicagoland Flower and Garden Show many years ago. They are in pots and come in for the winter here in IL. They bloom once or twice a year and are heavy large plants but worth it. One of them just bloomed in time for Christmas! Way to go crinum guy – keep sharing the beauty of these plants!
Highly entertaining piece!
Jenks is my go to guy for Crinum, here in the not so south, Dayton Ohio. Thanks for such a thoughtful article.
Love my crinum too. Had it for over 2 decades. Not the most fun to repot, however as it is very heavy. Between my garden club and work, I’m fortunate to be able to talk about plants to people who can talk back about plants. A real treat.
There is another book in you-one that will pay the bills and keep the crinums in high cotton. Keep writing until you find it!
Thank you.
Really, thank you.
Exactly! I can relate.
Good piece. You’re never alone if you have someone you can talk plants with. But also, I think of pigeonholes as open-ended on the back side. Once you lead someone in, you can open the world for them and fly!
Love this thought. Thank you
That is such a cool analogy.
Dag! Now, that was a rant! Good one! I planted my first Crinum this Fall. I’m in the neutral corner on them, having no experience (or wounds to heal) because of them. Regardless, IMHO, you re a welcome writer to this site.
Hmm, I tried to make it not too ranty….. (Thanks you)
I find they take over and need separation or they stop blooming.
That’s true for some species in cultivars. (especially digweedii types)But not all. It’s Important to remember that they grow a lot, so they need more compost as they get older in order to stay healthy. It’s not so much the dividing as it has the competition for nutrients when we forget that they have changed…
That’s true for some species in cultivars. (especially digweedii types)But not all. It’s Important to remember that they grow a lot, so they need more compost as they get older in order to stay healthy. It’s not so much the dividing as it has the competition for nutrients if we forget that they have changed…
Great read!! I count it a blessing to live surrounded by a garden filled with Crinum.
Buying in to the metaphor a bit too much, a pigeon hole is not a bad place if you are pigeonesque. More seriously, this is a fine piece, I hope to see more. And now to look for your other works.
Thanks Tim. I’ve written on here once before. I’m a somewhat reluctant writer, well sharer, but I post a few things on medium too.
Wow-wonderful writing Jenks. Glad you chose to weave a psychedelic experience into this piece too. You wrote of your experiences having stripped away your “layers”, sounds like a similar experience to my own that I had nearly a decade ago. All these titles we give to describe ourselves, ultimately can lead to boundaries. Having your boundaries dissolved, layers stripped away, it makes you realize how very special our lives can truly be. Take care, brother.
Thanks Chris — I was very hesitant about that. Thanks for the affirmation.
Definitely not too ranty. How many of us get to a certain point in life, having worn various costumes called Daughter (or Son), Mother, the Smart One, Computer Guy, the Chicken Lady, History Gal, etc., — and find that all of them fit but not quite 100% anymore. Do we want to wear all of them at once, or none at all?
Personally, I would settle for 50% at a time. We are in sorrow here tonight, watching the drought- and wind-driven wildfires ravage our old home turf, Boulder County, CO. So this very fun story / rant is serving as a welcome diversion.
2021, truly a bitch of a year. It won’t be missed.
Thanks Jenks for this charming, self-deprecatory post. GR could use some more humility, for sure.
Stay safe everyone, stay masked, get vaxxed and boosted. Here’s to a better year ahead, she said optimistically.
And Jenks, y’all come back ‘n see us, you heah me?
Great article. Really thought provoking and the comments are wonderful too.
It was never their size or floppy foliage that gave crinum a bad reputation for me, it was their general refusal to bloom on a regular basis or with any sense of abundance when they did. I was not a fan. Then I watched a crinum bloom every year in season, full and lush, way too far north in NC. One fell out of the ground and followed me home to a higher elevation where it returns every year after being frozen in winter but never blooms.
I purchased a Crinum bulb late fall from Jenks, my first, and I am very excited about watching it grow and bloom. I enjoy reading his articles and looking at the pictures of other plants that he grows on his farm. He is very thoughtful and knowledgeable about his plants.
Pigeonholing makes life easier for the mentally lazy. But for those on the receiving end it can feel really lonely, like being defined by someone else’s mnemonic device.
So lovely, Jenks. keep writing.
Lucinda! I was thinking of you just the other day while listening to a podcast about environmentaly friendly landscape and all the folks who were so generous to me when starting out. And I still tell people about that night time frog tour. So nice to hear from you.
What a fine piece of writing. I look forward to reading more from you.
I have one crinum, the variety I’ve long since forgotten, but it blooms beautifully every year, no matter how much I ignore it because it’s hard to see where I planted it. Yes, big mistake.
Question; is crinum pronounced with a long “i” or short?
Long I. Crinums are addictive. There is such a variety. Jenks is a wonderful plantsman, writer, speaker or just fun to talk to over lunch. You should travel to his farm and take a tour. Make sure to bring $$$, you won’t be able to resist.
Long I. Crinums are addictive. There is such a variety. Jenks is a wonderful plantsman, writer, speaker or just fun totravel talk to over lunch. You should to his farm and take a tour. Make sure to bring $$$, you won’t be able to resist.
No crinum in my own garden. But I’ll read anything you will write! This is a lovely, poetic, many-layered rant & kept me rapt til the very last word. Thank you for telling so much of your story in this short piece! (& I realize it is only a small layer of that story!).
Beautifully and very thoughtfully written. Your article displays expansive reflection and deep wisdom… you are gifted in composition as well as the plant world, my friend. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. My world is better because of you !!
Am new to southern gardening but have gardened all my life. Must confess that I have been deleting the emails from Jenks since signing up a few months ago, guessing that they were ads in disguise. I cannot express the joy that I have experienced after opening this one and realizing that the links were something to be explored. Also realized that a visit to Mr. Fryars topiary garden is overdue. I have repeated the story many times about him chuckling and telling me that he’s now slightly famous for doing something that got him into heaps of trouble with his mother. Young Pearl used to cut on momma’s shrubs!
Thank you so much for these beautiful stories,….all sources of gardeners joy.
Everything I read from this author tells me that someday we will be reading an epic novel from his experiences. He understands adventure, life and it all takes place in the verdant muck of the crinum trail. Love it.
Jenks, you just shared a piece of your soul. I respect you all the more for doing so.
Those who walk to the beat of a different drummer have much to be thankful for. They may be alone but rarely lonely, as they have an inner life to pursue and enjoy.
I enjoyed your gentle and accepting rant.
Just to say that, Mr. Farmer is always a joy & surprise. I hope to have a rant to send in soon. It is great to have permission to rant. My wife recently imposed a moratorium on listening to my rants. If you & your friends are willing, let us all RANT ON!
That song really gives me a nostalgic feeling. I really love her music Joan jet.
Btw if you have Drywall damage I’m your guy
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