Retiring Allan Armitage Leaves UGA Trial Gardens in Good Shape

When he leaves UGA in mid-July, garden guru Allan Armitage will leave behind one of the country’s best trial gardens.

Tucked between the Pharmacy Building and Snelling Dining Hall, the self-supporting UGA Trial Gardens offer a splash of color on South Campus. They also gives gardeners a glimpse of well-known ornamental favorites and industry a way to introduce their new ones. 

Growers and breeders from across the U.S., as well as in Holland, Denmark and Canada, all send plants to Armitage and his staff, who evaluate them to see how they hold up to the South’s heat and humidity. If they do well, and meet certain metrics, he recommends them—which can result in a plant becoming a garden staple.

A native of Canada, Armitage was graduated from McGill University with a botany degree. He spent seven years as a teacher in Montreal before deciding to make a change. With a wife and two children in tow, he got a master’s in wildlife biology from the University of Guelph and prepared to study bears. Only he found that he preferred being in a greenhouse to being in a wilderness. From a job in Ottawa handling interior plants for government office buildings, he went to Michigan State, earned a Ph.D. in horticulture and got a position with UGA.

“My philosophy was ‘When there’s a fork in the road, take it,’” he said. “All we knew about Georgia when we got here was Tara and slaves.”

Along with horticulture colleague Michael Dirr, Armitage started the Trial Gardens in 1982, “because we needed to work with industry,” he said.

Teaching courses and running the trial gardens aren’t the only things Armitage has done while at UGA. He’s busier than a dog with two bones.

He has written several books on gardening and plants. He started a travel company that takes participants to interesting gardens around the world. He’s heading to England this summer to set up a horticulture camp near Bessingham Gardens north of Cambridge. 

And he has developed an app that’s essential for every gardener, Armitage’s Greatest Perennials and Annuals. You can find it in the App Store, for $4.99.

The UGA Trial Gardens is having an open house for the public on July 13, when Dr. Armitage will be honored in a brief ceremony. Everyone is  invited.