A variety of plants, propagated from our historic properties, are now available for sale at the online Gift Shop at Robert Mills. The plants available for sale will rotate throughout the year based on season and availability. As you plan your garden, consider adding some plants from our historic gardens! Plus, all proceeds support Historic Columbia.
Plant Sale
Plants for Sale
Fall 2020 Plant Sale
The following plants are currently available for sale at the online Gift Shop at Robert Mills. Please note that our plant inventory is subject to change and based on demand, some plants may not be available.
| Name | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Southern Indica Azalea (Lilacina) | $15 | Antique Indica Azaleas are both old and rare -you won’t find this one around here! Lilacina is narrow growing and of moderate vigor. Smallish lavender flowers appear in profusion in mid-spring. |
| Double Pink Oleander | $10 | Oleander is a large sun-loving evergreen Mediterranean shrub cultivated since ancient times. It has dark green leathery lance shaped leaves in whorls around the long sparingly branched stems. The fragrant flower clusters, in various colors, are showy and appear over much of the summer. This variety has double pink flowers. |
| Cut-leaved Chaste Tree | $10 | If one appreciates billowy branches swaying in a breeze, then this is one of the best subjects, and because the undersides of its leaves are grayish-green, the wind effect is even more dramatic. It will develop into small tree proportions up to 15', but can be kept lower if a shrub is desired. These leaves of this cultivar are so finely divided as to resemble a Lace-leaf Japanese Maple, but they are even more delicate. In spring and early summer in covers itself with lavender spikes at every branch tip. As long as new growth is occurring during the summer, one will continue to have flowers. |
| Herbemont Musk Cluster Rose | $15 | This antique rose was bred by Nicholas Herbemont’s wife, Caroline Smyth Herbemont. It is most similar to a noisette, but with very large clusters of cleanly fragrant, small white flowers with a blush “eye.” Not overly vigorous in growth, it is an excellent candidate for training to a pillar, fence, or small arbor. |
| Herbemont Grape | $20 | The Herbemont grape is named for Nicholas Herbemont, who popularized the variety in South Carolina in the 1820s. It is a cross between Vitis aestivalis var. bourquiniana (native to the Southeastern United States) and Vitis vinifera (native to the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia, and the species most commonly used to produce wine). The Herbemont grape, though small, was deemed so succulent that it was often used as a table grape in the early 19th century. However, it was most famous for producing quality wines. From South Carolina it spread throughout the Southern and Eastern US and became an important wine variety in Missouri and Texas. Herbemont grapes were sometimes made into a fortified wine modeled on Madeira (indeed, some called the variety “Herbemont Madeira”) because their flavor was said to resemble that of verdelho, one of the principal Madeira grapes. Usually, though, Herbemont was used in the production of pale red or white wines. |
| Yaupon Holly | $15 |
This Yaupon is a rare yellow-berried selection found years ago by F.G. Tarbox, Jr. on T.A.Yawkey Plantation in Georgetown County, South Carolina. It was introduced by Brookgreen Gardens. It has an upright spreading form and somewhat open growth habit. The beautiful yellow fruit generally holds fall through spring. Yaupon is salt tolerant and can be sheared. |
| Hybrid Fig Vine | $12 |
A curious hybrid between the climbing fig (vine) and the edible fig (shrub) which is intermediate between the very different parents. Once established, this mostly evergreen and semi-vining shrub is tough as nails and can be trained as a groundcover, shrub, or vine. This form originates from the garden of legendary California gardener Ruth Bancroft! |
| Hick’s Ever-bearing Mulberry | $20 |
This hybrid between our native Red Mulberry and the Asian White Mulberry was made by Nicholas Herbemont here in Columbia sometime before 1820. It is known as “everbearing” because it produces fruit for several months in spring and early summer – a boon to those raising chickens and hogs! |
There's more where that came from!
The above selections are just a small portion of the wide variety of plants cultivated on four of our historic properties. Visit our Garden Database to find exactly what you're looking for.