Glorious Gardener: Louise Agee Wrinkle

May 17, 2023

“Listen to the land,” writes Louse Wrinkle, a member of the Little Garden Club of Birmingham, and “let the land speak for itself.”
Careful and patient attention to the land on which she has built her natural woodland garden in Birmingham, Alabama has allowed Louise to create a garden in which each element—rolling hills, shady paths and bridges, and a varied collection of well-identified plants—maintains a sincere relationship to the whole. Her unparalleled knowledge of plants and her instinct for wise mentoring and instruction have helped her to guide and encourage generations of gardeners throughout the Southeast and nationally. 

In 2017, Louise published Listen to the Land: Creating a Southern Woodland Garden, an intriguing narrative of her own history and the evolution of her garden and a very practical and personal collection of “Plant Profiles.” 

Louise Wrinkle’s accomplishments and accolades are many and growing. In her long history with The Garden Club of America, she has served as the Horticulture Committee chair and as a horticulture judge, and she has served on and led numerous other GCA committees. She has won awards at various levels for horticulture, photography, and creative leadership and was honored with the national GCA Achievement Medal in 2001 as a “Horticulturist par excellence, whose quiet but strong leadership has improved the landscape around us and has expanded all our knowledge.”  

She was also a founding member of the Garden Conservancy and has been a dedicated board member of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Aldridge Gardens in Hoover, Alabama.   

Today, Louise continues to guide fellow members of Little Garden Club of Birmingham with a special edition newsletter, “Pointers from the Potting Shed.” Not surprisingly, it tends to reflect her philosophy of listening to the land rather than rushing in with our own ideas. After a hard and sustained freeze across the Southeast this past winter, for instance, Louise reminded gardeners that “Patience is the answer. Hold off on pruning until spring tells us whether we need to wait longer…we should take advantage of these infrequent damaging weather happenings to remember what survives and what succumbs, and therefore know what will be dependable in the future.”

We look forward to learning more from this Glorious Gardener at every opportunity!

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