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Tucked into the historic charm of Beauregard Town, December’s Garden of the Month belongs to longtime Baton Rouge resident and lifelong plant enthusiast Chuck Booksh—a gardener whose passion has been nurtured throughout the many seasons of his life. Booksh proudly hails from a deeply rooted family in the small Louisiana village of Grosse Tete, where he first discovered his love of gardening as he watched his grandmother care for her flowers.
“My grandmother always had a big jasmine vine. Whenever I smell a hint of jasmine, I can see her again, outside watering her flowers,” said Booksh. “It’s sweet, how memories are transmitted through fragrance.”
In his urban garden, Booksh embraces the English garden style, which emphasizes a natural, more informal aesthetic than its French or Italian counterparts. His garden—nestled under a stately magnolia—overflows with aroma, bursts of color, and the kind of daily surprises only a gardener can appreciate.
“I’m surprised almost every day. It’s like a relationship you have with your garden,” Booksh said. “It’s changing all the time, and it surprises you. Several times a week I notice something doing well or I’ll recognize something I need to fix. I don’t let it disappoint me—I just either go with it or make adjustments. It’s like a dear friend.”
What initially inspired you to start gardening? I really got involved in gardening when I lived in Melrose Place from 1993 to 2009. I had a huge half-acre garden I called “Clouds End.” We were a part of the Friends of LSU Hilltop Arboretum’s Spring Garden Tour in 2000 or 2001. They do benefit garden tours in the spring where you can buy tickets, and local gardeners open their gardens to the public.
In spring of 2024, we were on the Hilltop tour again when they hosted a tour of gardens in Beauregard Town and Spanish Town. About 150 people walked through our garden last spring.
It’s enjoyable to nurture the plants and care for them, and then to have other people who enjoy gardening appreciate it as well.
How do you decide what you want to plant? It’s really fragrance and flowers—and more flowers—that draw my interest. I love foliage too, but I really like to have a lot of different colors blooming, especially in the spring.
What are some of the plants you have in your garden? I’ve really gotten into gerbera daisies in the last few years because they do so well in my garden. They’re beautiful flowers that bloom for months on end, and they survive freezes and droughts as long as I keep them watered.
I have a few roses, hydrangeas, camellias, chenille, clematis vines, hostas, ferns, and an assortment of potted plants on my deck and porch. I also have a nice satsuma and lemon tree that produce fruit, and my neighbor has a beautiful banana tree that stands about 25 feet tall between our houses, shading a portion of my yard.
What challenges do you come across? Compensating for aging is the main challenge I have now. I stopped buying terracotta pots a few years ago and instead use resin or plastic pots because terracotta is so heavy. It’s not a big garden, even though it encompasses our entire property. I can take care of it well for years to come, but I do have to think about a later age when I won’t be able to do some of the things I can do now.
Any advice? Get to know your garden. Get to be friends with your garden. Appreciate what’s going on in it every day. Things change all the time—it’s a living creation.
I tell myself that everything is an experiment. Try growing plants in different locations. If they don’t work in one spot, move them to more sun or less sun, or give them to someone who might do better with them.
No matter what, keep trying. People tell me, “You have a green thumb,” but I think it just comes down to practice. Keep trying even if you aren’t a successful gardener at first. Find things you can be successful with and enjoy the process.
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