A Gift for Everyone: Aldridge Family's Garden, Generosity Helping Beautify and Educate in Alabama
By: Jamie Creamer
Horticulture and Auburn University are in Eddie Aldridge's blood. His father, Loren L., had earned his agricultural science degree at AU in 1926, back when it was Alabama Polytechnic Institute, and had owned and operated a greenhouse and nursery business in Bessemer with his wife, Zeta, since the late 1920s. Eddie' s older brother, Mac–short for Loren McTyeire Aldridge–had graduated from Auburn in 1950 with a degree in ornamental horticulture and was working at the Aldridge operation.
So when the younger Aldridge entered AU as a freshman in 1952, majoring in ornamental horticulture, he was carrying on something of a family tradition. But during Eddie's freshman year, Mac died of a long-misdiagnosed brain tumor. Although the younger Aldridge remained at Auburn for two more years, Mac's death led him to decide to put college on hold and join the U.S. Army.
When he returned home from a two-year tour of duty in California and Germany, Aldridge went straight to work at Aldridge Garden Shop and Nurseries, which his parents had opened across from Vulcan Park in Birmingham in 1954 as one of the first full-scale garden centers in the country.
"There wasn't a question of whether I was going back to Auburn, because I wasn't," says Aldridge. "With the garden center, we were deep in debt. That was where I had to be." (And he did have the opportunity to finish college, earning a degree in business from Birmingham Southern College in 1959.)
By the time Eddie Aldridge "retired" in the mid-1990s, the highly respected horticulturist had devoted more than 40 years of his life to the nursery business and was an industry leader, one of his most noted accomplishments coming in 1971 when he patented and introduced the now-popular Snowflake hydrangea (Hydrangea querifolia 'Snowflake'). He is a past president of the Alabama Nurserymen's Association (ANA) and in 1999 was presented the W. Kelley Mosley Environmental Award in recognition of his wise and creative use of natural resources and his contributions to Alabama's natural environment. Most recently, the ANA presented Aldridge its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.
Aldridge tends toward modesty when it comes to his achievements and to the success of the Aldridge business, which a July 2002 Birmingham Business Journal article, in announcing the closing of Aldridge Garden Shop and Nursery, called "one of Birmingham's best-known nurseries," "a perennial bloomer" and "a gardening empire."
But Aldridge isn't hesitant at all when it comes to telling about the day in February 1977 that he stumbled upon the pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow.
It was on that day that Aldridge learned that the Lyl Coxe estate, a magnificent piece of property located in the middle of Hoover, Ala., might be for sale. He had caught his first glimpse of the place in 1966, when the owner hired him to plant three magnolia trees on the banks of the estate's 6.5-acre spring-fed lake, and had been blown away by its natural beauty.
Aldridge made a few calls and learned that the property had been sold–to a developer who intended to put an apartment complex on it, no less!–but that the deal had fallen through. Aldridge wasted no time in making an offer.
"I got my dad to go look at it with me, and he said, 'You ought to buy this property; it could be a public garden someday,'" Aldridge recalls.
But in that 30-acre Garden of Eden, it was not good that man should be alone. Not long after he bought the property he met a woman named Kay–the most charming woman he'd ever met. They married at the home in 1981. Over the years, the Aldridges continually enhanced their one-of-a-kind sanctuary, building walking trails and planting multitudes of trees, flowers and ornamentals–most prominent among them the Snowflake hydrangea.
Even as the couple worked to enhance the natural beauty of their property, though, Aldridge remembered his now-deceased father's comments about the estate's potential as a public garden.
In 1995, they made that dream a reality by conveying the land and house to the City of Hoover, with the key stipulation that the site, Aldridge Gardens, would be forever be a public garden–one that showcases hydrangeas, naturally.
Under the agreement with the City of Hoover, Aldridge Gardens, a non- profit organization, is managed by a 14-member board, of which Aldridge is a member. Beginning this year, students from Auburn University will be an active part of the garden's development, thanks to an innovative Aldridge Family Internship Program the Aldridges recently established, largely to honor the late Loren L. and Zeta McTyeire Aldridge. The program will give select AU students studying horticulture, botany, landscape design, forestry or plant science the opportunity to gain a semester's worth of real-world experience working full time, with pay, at the gardens.
The interns will work under the immediate supervision of Jared Wade, a 2003 AU horticulture graduate and Aldridge Gardens' first full-time horticulturist. Full oversight of the program, however, will be among the responsibilities of the highly qualified individual chosen to be the Loren McTyeire Aldridge Faculty Chair in the AU Department of Horticulture, a seat the Aldridges are creating through a $1 million endowment in memory of Mac–the older brother Aldridge lost 52 years ago.
"Mac never had the chance to make his contributions to horticulture," Aldridge says. "This is our way of honoring his memory."
In addition to the endowed faculty chair and the internship program, the Aldridges are establishing a number of scholarships for horticulture majors.
"Our hope is that, by making these opportunities available, we can help attract students to the horticulture program at Auburn," Aldridge says. "It is a wonderful field."