"Tom's farm is about loving a place and pouring heart and soul into it. His is a garden where people enjoy learning..."

People who see this garden call it a botanical wonderland. Thousands of vivid blooms adorn these 16 wooded acres in eastern Alabama. Scatterings and masses of reds, yellows, pinks, whites, and brilliant oranges gleam bright even in the dappled shade.

Everywhere the color glows is the handiwork of one man: Tom Corley. An avid plant collector and joyful gardener, Tom has turned a hobby into a glorious passion on his farm just outside Auburn near Loachapoka.

He lovingly nurtures all kinds of plants, but his favorites are clearly camellias, rhododendrons, and native azaleas. He takes pleasure in sharing their beauty and telling how they grew.

Camellias--His First Love
Tom took an interest in camellias in the early 1970s. Soon after, he began growing seedlings, setting them out all around the landscape and grafting successful selections. He prefers common camellias (Camellia japonica) over sasanquas (C. sasanqua). Today, his farm's 1,000 camellias bloom in the fall, winter, and spring. He starts treating some of his camellias with a plant hormone called gibberellic acid around Labor Day to force fall blooms. Tom gets his gibberellic acid through the local camellia club and carries some of his prized blooms to shows.

Discovering Native Azaleas
Several Piedmont azaleas (Rhododendron canescens) growing around the farm also caught Tom's eye. He admired their sweetly scented, trumpet-shaped blooms. He did some research on these beautiful native plants and discovered they were easy to grow from seeds. Soon, Tom was collecting seeds and planting them. Then he and his friends began hybridizing them. Today, he has more than 1,500 native azaleas and hybrids, 99% of which he grew from seeds. Colors include white, pink, orange, yellow, and red. Many are bicolored. Some striking orange-flowering selections begin with bright red buds, which unfurl to reveal orange petals. When the buds and the blooms are present on the same plants, it creates an interesting combination.