Copyright
Southern Edition
All Rights Reserved
All materials contained on this site, including text and images, are protected by copyright laws and may not be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher. Where applicable, use of some items contained on this site may require permission from other copyright owners.
Fair Use of text from SouthernEdition.com does not require express permission. Please cite SouthernEdition.com as follows:"Article Title," Southern Edition, the date on which you retrieved the article and the Southern Edition URL
For example:
"Forty Years Later: Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,"
Southern Edition. Retrieved May 31, 2008:
http://southernedition.com/
Contact:
Greg Freeman, Editor editor@southernedition.com
To subscribe to the free eNewsletter, send your request or a blank e-mail to subscribe@southernedition.com
Van Beck's Contributions to Southern Edition
Article: "Daffodils for the Deep South," Published June 8, 2008
An avid gardener and daffodil aficionado, Midtown Atlanta resident Sara Van Beck is widely regarded as one of the South's foremost daffodil authorities.
A love for daffodils was instilled in Sara by her father, John C. Van Beck, a native of Chicago, who moved to Florida in 1946. Fascinated that daffodils thrived on old northern Florida homesteads while purchased bulbs often met their demise, John was determined to ascertain which bulbs could tolerate the conditions of South Georgia and North Florida and learn what those daffodils might have in common with the prospering bulbs on long neglected properties and among the farmhouse ruins. Intending to publish his test garden findings in a book, John passed away before his project could be completed.
With her mother, Linda Van Beck, Sara co-authored Daffodils in Florida: A Field Guide to the Coastal South, a comprehensive book they describe as "the culmination of years of methodical effort and data collecting by the late John C. Van Beck in his quest to determine what daffodils would grow in north Florida and why."
A past regional director of the American Daffodil Society, today Sara is Chairperson of the ADS's Display Garden Program, and is President of the Georgia Daffodil Society. Her involvement with the GDS includes managing the organization's historic daffodil program at Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery, the final resting place of Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell and golfing legend Bobby Jones.
Frequently a spokesperson for the GDS, Sara has been interviewed on several occasions by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, always striving to enlighten the public about the wonderful world of daffodils.
As a writer, Sara is a regular contributor to the Daffodil Journal, the quarterly publication of the ADS, as well as Magnolia, the bulletin of the Southern Garden History Society. Additionally, her writing has appeared in Florida Gardener, and a photograph by Sara even accompanied a March 13, 2008 Atlanta Journal-Constitution piece by garden writer Martha Tate.
