| Brads Garden in Smithville, TN |
| Hello, my name is Brad and I grow a lot of plants, wildflowers, annuals, bulbs, perennials, but mostly gesneriads. Gesneriads are a large family of mostly tropical and sub-tropical plants, including Saintpaulia (African Violets), Achimenes, Nematanthus (Goldfish Vine), Aeschynanthus (Lipstick Vine), Streptocarpus (Cape Primrose), and Sinningia (Florist Gloxinia). I mostly grow and hybridize in the family Sinningia, they are fascinating plants from the size of a quarter to 4 foot tall, most fall between. I have been growing native plants for over 30 years now and have a few really nice ones, so be sure to look at the pictures. Recently, I have started collecting some of the Impatiens and Begonia species, they are very unusual and not what most people recognize, as I get more pictures I will be adding details about them. |
| ©copyright Brad Walker, May 19, 2012 |
| The Tennessee Gesneriad Society Show 2011 Check out the show! |
| Columnea sp. 'Cordillera del Condor' - a new species I just bought, the name translates as 'Mountains of the Condor'. It's from somewhere in the Peru/Ecuador border region. Nice size plant, can't wait to see it bloom. (Photos belong to Mountain Orchids) |
| Amaryllis (hippeastrum) 'Appleblossom' - one of my favorite plants. Large white and pink blossoms are a spectacular show in the spring, tall upright foliage to plant around until the fall. I tend to plant other tall plants with it and a trailing torenia. |
| Above and clockwise - Sinningia valsuganensis - I bought this at the TGS show and sale last October and have kept it in the greenhouse ever since. It was one of Richards plants Incredible orange blooms the top in a terminal cluster. |
| Hybrid cactus at work, the large pink bloom is a hybrid of a peanut cactus and rebutia, I think. (I will look at the label and write it down. |
| Sinningia (curtiflora x warmingii) x self - one of Mauro Peixoto's hybrid seedling. Tall upright plant that blooms on the top of stem with bright clear wine/pink, small flowers. |
| 6200 - (Booges Glory x{leucotricha x reitzii}) - looks like a more upright pink eumorpha. |
| Fucshia 'Electric Light' - a small cascading fucshia |
| Trillium catesbaei - a rare native trillium, I found this many years ago and the land was about to be clear cut and bulldozed. I had three, but only one survived a second move, it has taken 10 years for a single seedling to grow and bloom next to the parent. It has a clear white flower that slowly turns pink, has nodding flowers hid below the leaves. It blooms in late April, months after the rest of the Trilliums. |















| Richard Holder #4 - if anyone knows a name please let me know. |








| Sinningia Richard Holder #5 Just started blooming |
| Sinningia 1011 blooming |
| Oncidium alliance orchids in bloom right now in greenhouse. |
| Sinningia 'Hcy's Blue Dolphin' |
| Sinningia 'An's Confusedly Abyss' |
| Sinningia 'Royal Raspberry' |
| Kohleria 'Heartland's Blackberry Butterfly' - blooming in window at work. |