BRACK: Meet Tom Johnson, Magnolia’s “camellia man”

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Simply put, Tom Johnson is a character — a Georgia-drawling, camellia-addicted, big-hearted, fun-loving, hard-working, straight-talking character.

We tell you this because Johnson, who oversees the country’s largest camellia assortment at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, is featured as “The Camellia Man” in the latest and 50^th anniversary issue of Southern Living (pp. 144-149). In the article, he’s as sassy and fun as we remember during a trip to Cuba with him, wife Mary Ann Johnson and more than a dozen others last August.

“A camellia is a man’s plant,” Johnson says with a wry smile in the opening line of the article. “That is because it’s pretty much idiot-proof, and men don’t really like to be challenged.”

Johnson listens during a discussion at a Cuban farm.

The article highlights how the Georgia-born Johnson got a horticulture degree, worked for President Jimmy Carter and eventually made it to Charleston for a dream job at Magnolia, established in 1676. Just over 200 years later, a great-great-great grandson of the original owner started to transform the plantation by installing a series of romantic gardens. Now, assembling the largest collection of camellias is Johnson’s pleasant life’s work.

“A formal garden controls nature,” Johnson told the magazine. “But a romantic garden cooperates with nature. It is an extravagant liar. It ‘lies’ you into forgetting about your life outside the garden.”

Pick up a copy of the magazine for a pleasurable read about one of our own who now has an even bigger national profile.

In the latest issue of Statehouse Report, we offered a look at all of the frivolous bills clogging up the legislature. An excerpt:

“Legislators have introduced measures that would require schools to teach awareness about the Second Amendment and to use a website to report bullies.  There’s a measure to require schools to display the national motto, “In God We Trust,” in the lobby of each public school.  Here’s a good one — a bill to memorialize Congress to provide debt-free higher education (like Congress isn’t dysfunctional enough already).

“Perhaps our favorite is the Senate proposal (S. 952) to make it illegal to make loud noises.  But two similar bills, the Pastor Protection Act, come in second. H. 4446 and H. 4508, which are potshots at the whole gay marriage controversy, would keep a minister from being sued for not performing a marriage that he or she didn’t want to.”