County Extension Agent – Horticulture, Smith County
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
Greg Grant is an award-winning horticulturist, writer, photographer, conservationist, preservationist, and seventh-generation Texan from Arcadia, Texas. He is author of In Greg’s Garden-A Pineywoods Perspective on Gardening, Nature, and Family and Texas Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, and co-author of Heirloom Gardening in the South, Texas Home Landscaping, The Southern Heirloom Garden, and The Rose Rustlers. He also writes the popular “In Greg’s Garden” column for Texas Gardener magazine, a garden column in the Tyler Morning Telegraph, and writes a monthly “Greg’s Ramblings” blog. His real job however is the Smith County horticulturist for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in Tyler, Texas.
He has degrees in floriculture and horticulture, both from Texas A&M University and attended post graduate classes at Louisiana State University, North Carolina State University, and Stephen F. Austin State University where he is currently working on a PhD in Forestry. He has previous experience as a horticulturist with SFA Gardens, Mercer Arboretum, and San Antonio Botanical Gardens, an instructor at Stephen F. Austin and Louisiana State Universities, director of research and development at Lone Star Growers, and with the famed Antique Rose Emporium.
Greg has introduced a number of successful plants to the Southern nursery industry including Blue Princess verbena, dwarf pink Mexican petunia, Gold Star esperanza, Laura Bush petunia, John Fanick phlox, Stars and Stripes pentas, Pam’s Pink honeysuckle, Lecompte and Flora Ann vitex, Henry and Augusta Duelberg sages, Big Momma and Pam Puryear Turk’s Cap, Peppermint Flare hibiscus, and the Marie Daly and Nacogdoches (Grandma’s Yellow) roses.
Greg and his Cajun bride live in the Pineywoods of Deep East Texas in his grandparents’ old farmhouse, where he tends his Rebel Eloy Emanis Pine Savanna and Bird Sanctuary, two dozen chickens, one terrier, and three cats.