William Lanier Hunt,
F.R.H.S
"Dean of Southern Horticulture"
by J. Kenneth "Ken"
Moore
originally written 1996; revised by Ken Moore
in 2005
This short biography, based on personal
recollections and more than five decades of newsclippings, was
written by North Carolina Botanical Garden Assistant Director
Ken Moore. It was distributed to the membership of the Botanical
Garden Foundation on the occasion of its thirtieth anniversary
meeting on October 18, 1996. This long-anticipated very special
event held in the Totten Center of the North Carolina Botanical
Garden was a celebration of the life and contributions of William
"Bill" Lanier Hunt duirng his ninetieth year. Though
Bill Hunt was aware of this special gathering in his honor, he
was unable to attend for he was gravely ill in his apartment a
mere block away from the center of the Garden which he loved so
much. More than a hundred relatives, friends and associates joined
together that evening in acknowledging his many, many contributions
to the world of horticulture, his foundin of the Botanical Garden
Foundation, and his lifelong efforts to keep alive the rich heritage,
not only of our natural world, but the cultural life of our state
and community. Bill died early the following morning.
William Hunt's Childhood
and Student Years
William Lanier Hunt arrived in Chapel Hill
as a student at the University of North Carolina in 1927 with
two truckloads of plants, including a significant collection of
bearded irises, many of which became the basis of the notable
iris display of Sarah P. Duke Gardens on the campus of Duke University
in nearby Durham. His interests in plants and gardening were nurtured
when he was a youngster “playing” in his uncle’s
nursery near Greensboro, North Carolina.
Born on May 22, 1906 in Pomona, North Carolina,
William Lanier Hunt, the youngest son of Webster Milton and Cammie
Cook Hunt, spent his childhood growing up adjacent to the J. Van
Lindley Nursery, on the edge of Greensboro. His horticultural
training began early as he attentively watched the operations
of the south’s oldest (begun in 1822) and largest nursery.
A “playing field” of four hundred acres and fourteen
greenhouses of flora and nursery crops provided horticultural
and botanical training on a practical level. The nursery staff
included a number of European gardeners renowned for their horticultural
expertise and experience. The young Bill Hunt found a space for
a few of his own plants in every greenhouse and by the time he
entered Woodberry Forest in Virginia, he had begun writing horticultural
articles for newspapers and magazines. Some of his favorite plants
accompanied him to prep school in Virginia.
The two truckloads of plants which arrived
with him in Chapel Hill several years later, found their way into
various gardens: some to friends; some to new acquaintances; and
some to bits of borrowed ground for his won gardening. During
these years as a college youth he established himself as a knowledgeable
horticulturist and garden designer while pursuing a degree in
Botany under the well-known Dr. W. C. Coker. At an institution
where there was no horticultural curriculum, Bill’s horticultural
background was immediately recognized and put to use with the
development of the Coker Arboretum and the landscaping of the
University grounds, while Bill gained a fuller appreciation and
extensive knowledge of the South’s native flora under the
tutelage of Dr. Coker.
However, Bill Hunt was not narrowly focused
on horticulture and botany. His broad background from a cultured
family upbringing and study of liberal arts at Woodberry Forest
continued at the University where he was prominent in the University
Glee Club and active in the Carolina Playmakers, as well as double-majoring
in romance languages and botany. It was during these early college
student years that Bill Hunt discovered and explored the rhododendron-covered
bluffs along Morgan Creek east of town. Fortunately the beauty
and botanical value of these bluffs, his beloved “Laurel
Hill,” were recognized early in his career, for he pursued
ownership of that large parcel of wild land for three decades.
He was determined that it should be preserved eventually to become
a part of a great botanical garden for the South, of which Dr.
W. C. Coker was speaking as early as 1927. His enthusiasm and
encouragements were rewarded when several gifts of property were
made by W. C. and Louise Venable Coker and later from the estate
of W.C. Coker. These gifts served to join lands to become what
is now known as the North Carolina Botanical Garden contiguous
to land destined to become the Hunt Arboretum. In 1961 William
L. Hunt began making a series of gifts to the State of North Carolina
of land comprising Laurel Hill rhododendron bluffs and Morgan
Creek alluvial forest. This generous gift was designated for exclusive
use by the University of North Carolina for the preservation of
the significant natural features of the dramatic Morgan Creek
rhododendron bluffs and for future development of the Hunt Arboretum
of trees and shrubs native to the Southeast.
European Studies
and Friendships
During this period Bill’s education
and experiences were additionally expanded by a study trip to
Great Britain and Europe. His studies were based at Kew Gardens
where he made lifelong friendships with the notable horticulturists
and botanists of the period. Through earlier correspondence, Bill
had already established a friendship with Mr. T. Hay, King’s
Gardener and Supervisor of England’s parklands. This association
began an active exchange of plants and seeds across the Atlantic
between English horticulturalists and this Southern horticulturist
form the University at Chapel Hill. He brought back with him to
North Carolina a strong background in the horticultural teaching
practices of the Royal Horticultural Society, as well as a practical
understanding of urban park planning and maintenance and knowledge
of the rich historical heritage of English and continental garden
design. Kew Gardens, being the active center of world plant exploration,
provided an excellent background for the study of plants from
throughout the worked with horticultural potentials for our temperate
climates. This influence in the young Hunt’s early studies
was to appear repeatedly as he subsequently traveled his own southeast
region.
Wandering Garden
Specialist
Graduation from UNC with the class of 1931
left Bill Hunt with a fine degree but still thirsting for more
knowledge about horticulture in the South. Since there was at
that time no real center in the South for advanced studies in
ornamental horticulture and landscape gardening, Mr. Hunt set
out to utilize his resources and academic discipline to design
and pursue his own course of advanced studies of the horticulture
and garden development of the South. During the next decade he
became in his own words, “a wandering garden specialist.”
Traveling extensively throughout the southeastern states from
Baltimore, Maryland, to San Antonio, Texas, he gave garden lectures
and garden short courses, consulted with numerous towns and cities
on parks and beautification projects, wrote continuously for newspapers
and magazines, and studied nurseries, private gardens, and cemetery
plantings throughout the entire range. Keeping detailed records
of his observations of plant culture and garden styles, he established
himself by the end of the thirties as the “Dean of Southern
Gardening.” (1)
Having taken all of Dr. Howard Odum’s
courses at UNC, Bill’s horticultural expertise was recognized
when he was asked to contribute a section of the Southern Regional
Study of Social Science Research being conducted by Dr. Odum.
Mr.Hunt’s contribution was a survey of garden clubs and
gardening, florists and nursery businesses, civic beautification,
and conservation projects throughout the South.
In spite of the fact that there was no
department of horticulture at the University at Chapel Hill, Mr.
Hunt established it as a center of ornamental horticulture in
1934 with the writing of The Southern Garden, a Study Course
for Garden Clubs. (2) This was the University of North Carolina
Library Extension Publication Vol. I, No. 1, October, 1934, which
established the criteria and course outline, text and reference
materials for a complete study course of horticulture and landscaping
in the southern states. Under Mr. Hunt’s guidance the first
gardening school was conducted in Raleigh in the fall of 1934
and repeated the following year. In the third year the statewide
Garden Club of North Carolina adopted the course which was hosted
in ’36 and ’37 by the Extension Division of the University
of North Carolina. It is worth noting that during the short course
held in 1937 Mr. Hunt began actively campaigning for more organized
horticulture throughout the South. He declared that the South
was behind the rest of the country in the study of plants. He
publicly deplored that nowhere in the south was there a college
or school for the instruction emphasizing ornamental horticulture.
Nowhere in the South was there a real botanical garden in the
true sense of horticultural research, education, and public display.
(3)
The first such gardening school in the
State of South Carolina was conducted in 1937 in cooperation with
the extension division of the University of South Carolina. Bill
Hunt was there as principal speaker and leader of several workshops.
Mr. Hunt assisted in the organization and
was featured speaker at the first three day regional Garden School
held in Laurel Mississippi, in the fall of 1940.
Continuing the horticultural influence
of the University, Bill served as instructor for the University
of North Carolina Extension Division for two courses in gardening
and landscape design for Woman’s College in Greensboro in
1936. The University Extension Division also sponsored a short
course on southern gardening at Blue Ridge near Asheville during
the late summer of that same year. [NCU#69434, Geranium
thunbergii, collected at Blue Ridge by Hunt on 16 August
1936, held by the University of North Carolina Herbarium.] For
this series of classes Mr. Hunt assembled to assist him Dr. H.L.
Blomquist, Head of the Duke University Botany Department, and
Dr. B. W. Wells, Head of the Botany Department of State College,
as well as horticulture professors from State College. For a similar
series at Blue Ridge the following year, Bill assembled additional
notables including Dr. Orland E. White, director of Blandy Experimental
Farm and Professor of Agricultural Biology at the University of
Virginia, and Montague Free, Director of the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden.
Work with Garden
Clubs
During this decade before the war, Bill
Hunt continued to promote throughout the South the garden club
movement which had begun in Virginia in the mid-twenties. In 1935
he was honored speaker for the state convention of the Georgia
State Garden Clubs. Primary themes repeated again and again during
his appearances as featured speaker for state and regional meetings
was the need for efforts directed toward civic beautification
and establishment of city parks, as well as conservation of the
region’s natural resources. These themes are all now regularly
included standard programs of garden club organizations throughout
the South.
He was clearly ahead of his time in other
horticultural “preachings.” For example, during a
gardening series in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1936, Bill promoted
the concept of cultivating plants for fall and winter garden effects;
he described a program for designing gardens and cultivating plants
to attract birds to the home and urban landscapes; and he called
attention to the need for southern gardeners to realize that their
climate was indeed ideal in accommodating many more ornamental
plant species than were being tried. He advised against continuing
to try to grow many of the plants that were so popular in England
and the northeastern states, but rather recognizing the ornamental
values and logical hardiness of our region’s own native
plants and those exotic plants from areas of the Mediterranean
and North and South Africa with climates more similar to our southern
environments. How often we hear today these same horticultural
recommendations!
The decade of the thirties also saw the
beginnings of rock gardening in the South. Mr. Hunt was Vice President
of the American Rock Garden Society as well as the eastern regional
section of this specialty plant group in 1936. During that year
Bill hosted the first annual meeting of the regional group which
covered the area from Philadelphia to Atlanta. His floricultural
skills were called upon as he supervised the installation of rock
gardening exhibits of live plants which were displayed throughout
the University’s Carolina Inn, bringing amazement to delegates
from the mid-Atlantic coast who were visiting the University for
that meeting.
As the thirties decade came to a close,
Mr. Hunt was still actively traveling and pursuing his self-styled
study and teaching program. The breadth of his knowledge and influence
was amazing. In 1939 he conducted a two-day Southwestern School
of Judging and Flower Arrangement in Wichita Falls, Texas, and
in 1941 he was back again in Texas conducting a Garden Conference
sponsored by the Texas Federation of Garden Clubs and Texas State
College for Women, where, in addition to speaking on recommended
plant species for Texas gardens, and on daylilies and flowering
bulbs, he promoted the “composting of leaves,” stating
that “It’s a sin to burn leaves!” (4) Is this
not one of the components of the organic gardening movement of
the late twentieth century!
This man’s energy and dedication
to horticultural study and teaching became legendary. His extensive
speaking tours throughout the South lecturing, consulting, and
encouraging communities in horticultural improvements, were seized
as opportunities for extensive photographic and written observations
along the way. One such trip in 1940 was highlighted in a Chapel
Hill news release which described his fall tour of 3,000 miles
in four weeks covering eight states from Virginia to Texas. (5)
This volume of horticultural and botanical observations served
as a growing practical resource for his writings for the remainder
of the century.
The World War II
Years
Along with so many activities during the
decade of the forties, Bill Hunt’s southern horticultural
activities were interrupted by the war. With the zeal of other
Americans, he served with distinction, utilizing, not surprisingly,
his horticultural as well as his language abilities. First he
was called upon to oversee the planting and management of 6,000
acres of turf landing fields at Bainbridge, Georgia, used for
training thousands of American pilots. Later he was called upon
to develop and supervise the execution of the plan for camouflaging
the strategic blimp base at Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Finally,
he was transferred to Europe where his French and German language
abilities placed him in sensitive activities with the Belgian
underground working with the Allies’ Strategical Bombing
Survey. During his tour of duty there he accumulated a valuable
collection of Belgian Underground leaflets and other documents,
which upon his return to Chapel Hill he turned over to the University
Library, where they remain as a valuable archival resource for
the study of that period of American and European history. Additionally,
during this time there were periods of brief stays in England,
which allowed Bill to renew contacts with horticultural friends
and associates.
Garden Writing
Following the war and his return to Chapel
Hill, Bill lost no time in resuming his active dedication to horticulture
in the South. His garden writing resumed immediately. In 1947
he was appointed to the managing staff of House Beautiful
as contributing editor for the southern region. In 1949 William
Lanier Hunt was the author of a special edition, Southern
Gardens and Garden Books of The Southern
Packet, A Monthly Review of Southern Books and Ideas,
Volume V, Number 3, March 1949, published by The Stephens Press
of Asheville, N.C. (6) This work contained an essay on the “Romance
of Southern Gardening” accompanied by a full bibliography
of Southern horticulture.
Mr. Hunt was called upon to provide the
special guest features for the March, 1951 special Spring Garden
Edition of The Charlotte Observer. Demonstrating
his lasting energies and popularity with readers in February 1961,
he was called upon to provide the guest feature introduction for
the Program Magazine and Flower Book
for The Southeastern Flower and Garden Show held at the State
Fair Arena in Raleigh.
Following the war, he was also immediately
back on the road, being featured as special speaker at the Annual
Meeting of the Georgia Garden Club in Atlanta in 1948 and again
in Savannah in 1953. In 1949 he returned to Pine Bluff, Arkansas,
where he continued the plea for the need for real botanical gardens
in the South as institutions for the study and display of regional
horticulture. Having been to Pine Bluff as a consultant on city
beautification before the war, he was back before the Chamber
of Commerce describing the wisdom of sustained plantings efforts
and the need for city-wide planning surveys. He recommended the
use of graduate students from neighboring colleges and universities
as a prime resource to assist with such inventories and surveys.
He was called back to South Carolina for the twentieth anniversary
state convention meeting of garden clubs n 1950.
In 1954 honor and distinction were brought
to Chapel Hill and the University, as well as to horticulture
in the South, when William L. Hunt, one of the first American
Fellows of the Royal Horticultural Society (F.R.H.S.) was invited
to lecture before a mid-June meeting of the Society in London.
He was also the official delegate of the American Horticultural
Society for the occasion of the Royal Horticultural Society’s
sesquicentennial on July 27. (7) During this summer of study traveling
throughout England and France and Italy, Bill continued to submit
his well-known “The Southern Gardener” weekly garden
column which the Durham Morning Herald
was pleased to continue running as a “different” type
of column on gardening and traveling. Mr. Hunt’s columns
ere carried by a number of different papers during the years.
The breadth of his knowledge and experience and his skills as
a writer are certainly demonstrated by the fact that his columns
were carried simultaneously by papers as geographically separated
as the Durham Morning Herald and The
Shreveport [Louisiana] Times.
During the 30’s, 40’s, and
50’s Mr. Hunt’s energies were also directed to the
collecting of horticultural, botanical, and landscaping volumes,
such as Curtis’s Botanical Magazine
dating back to its firs volume issued in 1787 describing the early
years of American/European horticultural exchange and world plant
exploration. He set out to obtain, wherever and whenever he was
able, volumes that would have information pertinent to gardening
in the southern states because there was a great lack of any significant
collections of relevant gardening books in southern colleges and
universities. Mr. Hunt’s collection has grown to considerable
botanical and horticultural value. Recognizing Mr. Hunt’s
achievement in assembling such a fine collection of horticultural
volumes, the University of North Carolina, with Mr. Hunt’s
cooperation and advice, staged in the Wilson Library an exhibition
of rare garden books during the summer of 1958. (8)
Mr. Hunt was very much a part of a significant
Southern gardening literary event in 1967. At his urging the UNC
Press published a revised edition of the 1942 publication, A Southern
Garden, by his friend and garden associate, Elizabeth Lawrence.
For this long awaited publication, Bill Hunt wrote the Foreword
and provided numerous new photographs made in cooperation with
the accomplished photographer, Bayard Wooten.
North Carolina Botanical
Garden
Bill Hunt directed much of his energy during
the decade of the 60’s to pursuing the dream begun by W.
C. Coker of establishing a great university botanical garden for
the study and display of native and hardy flora in the south.
Up to this time Mr. Hunt had quietly succeeded in accumulating
land including the “Laurel Hill “ section along Morgan
Creek so that he could offer 100 acres of that land to become
the Hunt Arboretum. Bill convinced Chancellor Aycock to guide
the University Trustees in designating additional University land,
including portions of the Mason Farm tract, for use as the North
Carolina Botanical Garden, thereby joining the Hunt Arboretum
and the Botanical Garden as a larger single entity. The Garden
was officially opened in 1966 by the first Director, Dr. C. Ritchie
Bell, as a series of nature trails laid out by William L. Hunt,
who served as garden designer. During this time Bill Hunt was
asked by Dr. John Couch, Chairman of the Botany Department, to
organize an Advisory Board for the Botanical Garden, which he
did, appointing from throughout the state a number of citizens
of distinction with particular interests n the Botanical Garden
and conservation. During the first meeting, realizing the need
for future financial and other support in addition to what may
be possible through the normal University budgetary channels,
Mr. Hunt initiated the founding of a tax-free foundation “to
receive funds and hold lands” for the benefit of the North
Carolina Botanical Garden. Significantly, Mr. Hunt took care that
the Foundation’s structure was established with the flexibility
to assist, by action of the Board, worthy botanical, horticultural,
or conservation activities elsewhere in the South. That group,
for which Bill Hunt served as the first President, is recognized
today as the Botanical Garden Foundation, Inc., which supplements
the State appropriations for support of the Botanical Garden.
Mr. Hunt donated significant financial resources during the early
years of the Garden to assist with hiring part-time and seasonal
workers during the years when there were no funds available for
such purposes. As the Garden became established following the
initial state funding, he continued to assist its growth and development
by offering lectures and seminars at the Garden and at other locations.
One of Mr. Hunt’s most memorable and popular programs during
the 80’s was a winter horticultural / historical walk through
the Coker Arboretum and across the landscape of the original part
of the UNC campus. His stories ranged from early recollections
of Dr. W. C. Coker’s plantings in the Coker Arboretum to
memorable accounts of the lively personalities who played significant
roles in the development of the University.
Work with Students
of Horticulture
During this period he also assisted students
of botany and horticulture in a number of ways. Some were given
seasonal employment assisting in the maintenance of Mr. Hunt’s
own small but horticulturally significant garden, developed in
a small portion of the Hunt Arboretum. He provided the resources
and special introductions for study trips to England to supplement
the education of several students. One of these students became
the Director of a southern university horticultural garden, another
became an Assistant Director of a similar institution, and another
became the Director of a statewide prison horticultural training
program.
Mr. Hunt worked enthusiastically with horticulturalist
Mr. Frederick Heutte, lending assistance in establishing the Landscape
Gardening School at the Sandhills Community College. This two-year
degree program offers an intense, practical work-study program
patterned after the similar programs administered at Wisley Gardens
of the Royal Horticultural Society in England. Mr. Hunt continued
to support the program by offering seminars and lectures to the
Sandhills students on a regular basis.
After a decade of preoccupation with the
Botanical Garden, Mr. Hunt again became active on the rod throughout
the South. He was the keynote speaker in Shreveport, Louisiana,
for the formal dedication of the R.S. Barnwell Memorial Garden
and Art Center in 1970 and returned in 1975 to conduct a one-man,
two-day William Lanier Hunt Garden Symposium held at the Barnwell
Center. (9)
History of Gardening
in the American South
Traveling and lecturing throughout the
South in these most recent years, Mr. Hunt has turned his attention
to the historical aspects of southern gardens and gardening. He
is the initiator and incorporator and one of the founders of the
Southern Garden History Society covering a fifteen-state region.
This Society began in 1982 and now has an active membership of
more than six hundred avid gardeners and garden historians. Honoring
his contribution to the Society, the Board of Directors named
him lifelong Honorary President.
Similar organizations which have resulted
from Mr. Hunt’s enthusiasm, expertise and support are the
Piedmont Heritage Rose Society, the Heritage Rose Foundation,
established for the preservation and study of old roses throughout
America.
While making contributions on behalf of
numerous academic and public societies through his encouragements
and communications about southern gardening and civic beautification,
his greatest passion remained dedicated to the support of making
the North Carolina Botanical Garden and the Hunt Arboretum a reality.
Interest in Fine
Arts
His interests, studies, and resources,
however, have not been exclusively directed to pursuing gardening
themes. There is evidence dating back to his early years at the
University in Chapel Hill that he has continued to be a student
and promoter of the humanities and arts. In the early years he
worked actively with Bobby Hedgcock, Frank Howell, and the legendary
“Proff” Koch in organizing the UNC Concert and Entertainment
Series. He continued on after graduation for several years (1927-1933)
as voice coach and baritone soloist with the UNC Glee Club and
accompanied the group on its English tour for the benefit concert
for the rebuilding of the Shakespeare theater at Stratford-on-Avon.
He was a member of the Men’s Dance Group, and interest which
he continued by providing seating for numerous students of horticulture
and the humanities at local dance performances, particularly during
the summer American Dance Festival series in Durham, N.C.
In the late 30’s he borrowed a one-woman
show of the art of Miss Rosamund Niles and hung it on both floors
of the present Music Department. It was the first big art exhibit
ever hung at the University. Guests from the press boxes at the
home football game were invited for a two-hour reception where
hundreds of guests included University President Frank Graham
and Dean of Administration Robert House. The creation of the University’s
Department of Art was soon to follow.
One day in the mid-60’s Bill took
a close look at an oriental carpet and realized that therein lay
the very fabric of several human cultures interwoven with a diversity
of plant heritage motifs including the native plant dyes and garden
and flower inspired designs. In his characteristic “always-a-student”
manner, he tacked the study of oriental carpet design and history
for the next several years, achieving an academic expertise that
resulted in his providing a number of oriental carpet lectures
to interested audiences throughout the state. Accompany him was
his own “teaching” collection of carpets, themselves
a small museum of historical and instructional value. Mr. Hunt’s
expertise captured the attention of Dr. Wilton Mason, Professor
Emeritus of the University of North Carolina and former Chairman
of the Department of Music and the Division of Fine Arts, who
honored the new rug collector in an article in the noted international
journal of oriental carpets, Hali, Vol.
5, No. 3, 1983. (10)
Lifetime Awards
In the early 80’s William L. Hunt
became most notably recognized to the younger adult generations
as the author of Southern Gardens, Southern Gardening.
Bill’s close gardening friend, Elizabeth Lawrence, whose
own gardening books have become legendary since her death, wrote
the Introduction to Bill’s book. In addition to providing
an interesting personal historical account, she paid tribute not
only to the horticultural knowledge and skills of William L. Hunt,
but also to the many long years of Bill Hunt’s effort to
preserve a significant bit of local wilderness and provide for
the dream of a great southern botanical garden: “Then in
1960 he began to transfer the land to the university, as the Hunt
Arboretum, to be administered under the new North Carolina Botanical
Garden. When the gift was announced in 1961, Burke Davis wrote
in his ‘Tar Heel Notebook’ (Greensboro
Daily News, November 26), that it was ‘one
of the greatest gifts to the public wealth, to be remembered as
long as we are spared the thermonuclear torch. A handsome gesture
indeed.’” (11)
In 1995 William L. Hunt was named an Honorary
Member of the Garden Writers Association of America. This honor
is conferred by vote of the Board of Directors to an individual
who has contributed measurably to the objectives of the organization.
Honor was brought to the University and
Chapel Hill in May of 1996 when Mr. Hunt hosted The International
Dendrology Society during its tour across Virginia and North Carolina
as part of its Annual Meeting. Society members from as far away
as Belgium, Argentina and Australia were impressed with the mature
trees of the UNC campus and the diversity of plants at the Botanical
Garden and enjoyed Bill Hunt’s accounts of some of the heritage
of UNC and Chapel Hill. A highlight of the visit was the special
recognition by the Society for his many years of horticultural
achievements as well as a singing tribute by all in honor of Bill
Hunt’s Month-of-May ninetieth birthday.
At its 30th anniversary meeting in October,
1996, the Board of Directors of the Botanical Garden Foundation,
Inc. and special friends shared in honoring “Bill”
Hunt as their “Founder” and as recipient of the North
Carolina Botanical Garden’s own special FLORA CAROLINIANA
AWARD. This special award was presented to William Lanier Hunt
“In celebration of his enthusiasm and service to the preservation,
restoration and appreciation of the natural world around us.”
This award previously has been presented to Lady Bird Johnson
and to internationally known naturalist, John Terres.
Reflecting upon is distinguished horticultural
career Southern Living Magazine Garden Editor Linda Askey described
him: “Bill Hunt as been my link to Southern garden heritage.
He and his contemporaries, Elizabeth Lawrence and Caroline Dorman,
gardened voraciously and wrote eloquently, setting a pace that
challenges the most experienced gardeners with their diverse palette
of plants… while offering the simple understandings that
beginners need. While being the essence of the grand gentleman
of the garden, Bill has the spark of enthusiasm that keeps him
ever young and ever dear to the countless gardeners he has influenced.”
Today we all, plants-people or not, celebrate
the energies and contributions of William L. Hunt, “the
Dean of Southern Horticulture.” He became indeed a living
legend, whose pursuits never waned from that time in 1927 when
he arrived with his truckloads of plants at the University at
Chapel until his death on October 19, 1996. For Botany, for Horticulture,
for encouragements to students and adults alike, for civic beautification,
for the recognition of our regional flora, for early promotion
of organic gardening, for preservation of southern garden history,
and the appreciation of music and other arts, his achievements
are “A handsome gesture, indeed.”
FOOTNOTES
1. Program Speaker notes of the Annual Meeting of the National
Council of State Garden Clubs.
2. Hunt, William L. 1934. The Southern Garden: A Study Course
for Garden Clubs, First Series. The Unviersity of North Carolina
Library Extension Publication.
3. 1958. The TImes. Shreveport, La. January 23.
4. 1941. The Dallas Morning News. January 15.
5. 1958. The Greensboro Daily News. November 23.
6. Hunt, William L. March 1949. Southern Gardens and Garden Books.
The Southern Pakcet: A Monthly Review of Southern Books an Ideas.
The Stephens PRess, Asheville, N.C.
7. 1954. The Durham Morning HErald. May 29.
8. 1958. The Charlotte Observer. July 20.
9. 1970. The Shreveport TImes. October 12.
10. Mason, Wilton. 1983. Portrait of Southern Collector: William
Lanier Hunt. Hali 5(3).
11. Hunt, WIlliam L. 1982. Southern Gardens, Southern Gardening.
Duke University Press, Durham, N.C.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Special Thanks to:
Ken Moore, Curator Emeritus of the North Carolina Botanical
Garden, for providing this biographical sketch of William Lanier
Hunt.
Laura Cotterman, Publications and Publicity Coordinator for
the North Carolina Botanical Garden, for providing the photograph
of Ken Moore and Billy Hunt.
