Elizabeth Lawrence

Not that lost!

Elizabeth Lawrence, from The Charlotte Observer

I feel like I’m cheating a little bit by including Elizabeth Lawrence on the list of Lost Ladies of Garden Writing. She is widely known especially in the southern United States and amongst garden writers in general, far from forgotten and deservedly so.

Have you heard of her? Yes, no, maybe? Here’s a little bit about her.

Her Biography

Briefly, Elizabeth was born in 1904, attended Barnard College in New York City and then got a degree in Landscape Architecture from what is now known as North Carolina State University. She lived first in Raleigh, North Carolina, before moving to Charlotte in 1948, where she considered her garden to be a “living laboratory.” She died in 1985, aged 81.

If you’d like to explore a complete timeline of her life, check out the Wing Haven Foundation website where they’ve included one.

You can also read more about her in No One Gardens Alone: A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence by Emily Herring Wilson.

Her Writing

Elizabeth was a prolific writer. In addition to writing several books which are still available, Elizabeth wrote over 700 gardening columns for The Charlotte Observer. She also wrote numerous articles for magazines, newsletters and plant society bulletins. Many of those articles have been compiled and published in these three books:

A Garden of One’s Own: Writings of Elizabeth Lawrence, edited by Barbara Scott and Bobby Ward

Beautiful at All Seasons: Southern Gardening and Beyond with Elizabeth Lawrence, edited by Ann L. Armstrong and Lindie Wilson

Through the Garden Gate: Elizabeth Lawrence, edited by Bill Neal

Signature in one of her books in my library.

Her Books

Elizabeth wrote six books, two of which were published after she died.

A Southern Garden (1942)

The Little Bulbs: A Tale of Two Gardens (1957)

Gardens in Winter (1961)

Lob’s Wood (1971)

Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins (published posthumously 1987)

A Rock Garden in the South, edited by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy, (published posthumously 1990)

Her Letters

In addition to writing books and a long-running newspaper column, for decades Elizabeth exchanged letters with many gardeners throughout the United States. If you enjoy collections of letters, you might enjoy these books:

Becoming Elizabeth Lawrence: Discovered Letters of a Southern Gardener, edited by Emily Herring Wilson (2010)

Two Gardeners: A Friendship in Letters, Katharine S. White & Elizabeth Lawrence, Edited by Emily Herring Wilson (2002)

Elizabeth Lawrence’s typewriter, set up with a view of her garden

You Can Still Visit Her Garden

Elizabeth is one of the few garden writers in the United States whose garden is open to the public. The Wing Haven Foundation, working with the Garden Conservancy, maintains Elizabeth’s gardens in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ve personally visited her garden twice, and both times was given a passalong plant to grow in my garden. I treasure the Barnardia japonica that blooms in late August in my garden and came from Elizabeth’s garden. (Sadly, the other plant I was given died.)

You can also visit her library of books, kept in a special collection in the Cherokee Garden Library at the Atlanta History Center. I spent a few hours there one afternoon while in Atlanta for GardenComm’s annual conference in 2016. It was fun to browse her actual books, the ones she turned to for inspiration and information.

I have also visited Lob’s Wood, a garden in the Cincinnati area, which Elizabeth wrote about in her book The Little Bulbs and in Lob’s Wood.

Quotable

In both her books and her newspaper columns, you’ll find many quotable passages. One that I quote every month on my blog when I post for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day to capture information about what’s blooming each month in my garden is “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year.” I think it is from her book, Gardens in Winter. I’ve used that quote as inspiration to add late and early blooming plants to my garden to bridge the gap from November through February when not much blooms.

Another famous quote is “The hum of bees is the voice of the garden.”

But one of my favorite quotes is from the preface of The Little Bulbs:

“From putting together experiences of gardeners in different places, a conception of plants begins to form. Gardening, reading about gardening, and writing about gardening are all one; no one can garden alone.” ~ Elizabeth Lawrence

Elizabeth Lawrence Garden, September 2015

Let’s Have Tea With Elizabeth

At this point in these posts, I usually write out a couple of questions that I’d love to ask the Lost Lady of Garden Writing, if she was still alive, but I won’t do that today. Instead, I urge everyone to read a first hand account of meeting Elizabeth in 1982, written by Allen Bush¹ in 2009 and published on the Human Flower Project Website—which we thought was lost to the internet, but is being restored.

Then, if you are ever in Charlotte, plan to visit her garden in person.

Who’s Next?

I know I’ve just barely scratched the surface when it comes to Elizabeth Lawrence, but perhaps I’ve planted that little seed that makes you want to find out more? I hope so, as she is a garden writer we should never forget. Her books are still readily available—many through the Wing Haven gift shop—and you can visit her garden in person.

I think I know who’s going to be the next Lost Lady of Garden Writing. She’ll be someone who corresponded with Elizabeth about her gardens. Can you guess who? I’ll be back with an article about this next Lost Lady of Garden Writing on June 24, 2026.

1. Allen Bush is on of the best garden writers on Substack, well worth subscribing to!