Elizabeth Lawrence, the daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth “Bessie” Lawrence, was born in 1904 in Marietta, Georgia into a formal and fiercely loyal family. During Elizabeth’s childhood Mr. Lawrence’s stone and quarry business moved them from small town to small town, once to Richmond, VA and then finally in 1916 to Raleigh, NC where he enrolled Elizabeth and her sister, Ann in St Mary’s Preparatory School.

Their Raleigh home at 115 Park Avenue was the place where Elizabeth’s interest in gardening flourished, and its garden there was well known and visited regularly by friends and neighbors. In fact it was referred to as “ the talk of the town”. After Elizabeth graduated from Barnard College in New York in 1926, she returned to Raleigh. In 1932 she became the first woman to receive a degree in landscape design from NC State University.

Elizabeth once said that she designed gardens but could not bear to be called a “landscape architect.” Her interest was in the plants themselves. “She was going to use her own garden as laboratory for learning about plants.”

Miss Lawrence’s desire and passion was to garden and writing about gardening was what she knew best. Her friendship with actress Ann Preston Bridgers, who collaborated with George Abbott to produce the Broadway hit, “Coquette”, became the catalyst Elizabeth needed to hone her writing skills. Ann and her sister, Emily, became her mentors and beloved critics. In the 1930’s she slowly gained publication in the smaller garden periodicals, and then in 1942, A Southern Garden was published. It was lauded immediately. “Now, at long last,” wrote Charlotte Hilton Green, “there is a book on Southern gardening by a Southern writer that is a ‘must’ for every garden lover of the South.” It was reprinted in 1967,1984,1991 and 2001. A Southern Garden has long since been hailed as a classic.

In 1948, twelve years after Mr. Lawrence’s death, Elizabeth and her mother decided to move to Charlotte to be near her sister, Ann, Ann’s husband Warren Way and their family. The two sisters purchased adjoining lots on Ridgewood Avenue, down the street from the Clarksons’ Wing Haven and at the edge of Myers Park. Elizabeth designed her new smaller garden, and it is a reflection of her ingenuity, vision and thrift. Elizabeth’s house is a charming and inviting cottage with an enviable relationship between the house and garden.

Elizabeth lived here for 35 years and wrote three more books; The Little Bulbs, A Tale of Two Gardens, Gardens in Winter, and Lob’s Wood. She also prepared over 700 columns for publication in THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER. One of the most significant and interesting aspects of her life was her friendships with plants people and gardeners from all over the country and the correspondence she enjoyed with them. Her relationship with Katharine White is just one of these, and the book Two Gardeners: A Friendship in Letters edited by Emily Herring Wilson records their exchange from 1958-1977. Katharine White wrote in her book, Upward and Onward in the Garden, “I have learned more about horticulture, plants, and garden history and literature from Elizabeth Lawrence than from any other one person”.

Elizabeth Lawrence died in Maryland in 1985 and is buried at St. James Church, Lothian, Maryland.

A Southern Garden, UNC Press 1942, 1967, 1984, 1991, 2001.
The Little Bulbs: A Tale of Two Gardens, Criterion Books, 1957, Duke University Press, 1986.
Lob's Wood, Cincinnati Nature Center, 1971
Gardens in Winter, Harper and Brothers, 1961, Claitor’s Publishing Division 1977.
Gardening For Love: The Market Bulletins, Duke University Press, 1987.
A Rock Garden in the South, Duke University Press, 1990.

Through the Garden Gate by Elizabeth Lawrence, edited by Bill Neal, UNC Press, 1990.
A Garden of One’s Own: Writings of Elizabeth Lawrence, edited by Barbara Scott and Bobby J. Ward, UNC Press, 1997.
Two Gardeners: A Friendship in Letters, Katharine S. White & Elizabeth Lawrence, edited by Emily Herring Wilson, Beacon Press, 2004.
No One Gardens Alone: A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence, by Emily Herring Wilson, Beacon Press, 2004.