The work of university
legend Tom Corley:
Smitherman named another of his hybrid azaleas
‘Corley’s Cardinal’ after fellow azalea enthusiast and
colleague Tom Corley.
Corley received his bachelor of science in 1943
and his master’s in 1949, both in agricultural
engineering from Auburn University. He spent his
career at the Alabama Agricultural Experiment
Station at Auburn, and he is well known for his
cotton mechanization research which played a
major role in developing mechanized methods of
producing and harvesting cotton. His reputation
across the Cotton Belt resulted in rapid acceptance
of mechanized methods by all segments of the
cotton industry. Additionally, under his guidance,
the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
grew to almost 25,000 acres scattered across 16
locations throughout the state, including the
addition of the E.V. Smith Research Center
in Shorter, Alabama, which remains a flagship
agricultural research location in the state. He
retired in 1984, and Auburn University named the
Biosystems Engineering Building in his honor
and in recognition of his 36 years of service to the
university and the state.
Corley is a WWII veteran and has served as
president of the Auburn Kiwanis Club and the
Auburn Men’s Camellia Club.
On his property, Corley has approximately 1,500
deciduous native azaleas, 99 percent of which
were grown from seed. Corley has donated
countless plants to both the university and city
of Auburn, including Kiesel Park, Moore’s Mill
Club, Samford Park, the Garden of Memory, and
the Davis Arboretum.
nationally to Public Television in 1994. Greenleaf ’s
orchestral work “Celebration,” was commissioned
to celebrate the rebirth of the Alabama Symphony
Orchestra and premiered in 1997 by that orchestra
in Birmingham. In 1998, “Celebration” was given
six performances by the National Symphony
Orchestra, and in 2004, “Celebration” was chosen
as the theme music for the International Computer
Programming Contest, sponsored by IBM, and
received its European Premiere by the Prague
Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Additionally,
his song series, “A Modern Woman’s Life and
Love” premiered in 2012 at the National Gallery
of Art.
Greenleaf eventually made connections with
Smitherman, Rouse, and Corley who introduced
him to hybridizing azaleas. The men shared tips,
insights, and plants as they grew their hybrids.
Some of their hybrids were created from tissue
culture or cuttings. Most, however, were developed
by cross-pollinating two different plant varieties.
The seeds of the cross-pollinated azaleas were
then planted and nurtured until seedlings were
large enough to pot. The cross-pollination method
sounds, on its surface, to be a rather straight
forward process; in reality, the method requires
years of trial and error to achieve a single, highquality plant.
Greenleaf receives
shared knowledge
Born and raised in Auburn, Greenleaf received
degrees in clarinet performance from Florida State
University and Louisiana State University before
returning home to join the faculty at Auburn
University in 1974. His enthusiasm for native
azaleas is due to the influence of his parents.
His mother was a botanist and his father, Walter
Greenleaf, was a professor of horticulture at
Auburn from 1947 to 1982.
The youngest early contributor to the Auburn
Azalea series is Robert Greenleaf, a retired
Auburn University professor emeritus of music
and composer. He is well known for his full
length opera Under the Arbor, which premiered
in Birmingham in 1992 and was distributed
“I grew up around plants,” said Greenleaf. “When
I was hired at Auburn on the music faculty, my
father gave me a lot. The first thing I did on the lot,
instead of building a house, I planted some native
azaleas. They are still here, and that was 40 years
ago.”
“I learned about hybridizing mainly through
Smitty,” said Greenleaf. “At one point I had 2,600
plants in pots, and you have to check on these little
plants every day. You have to grow them in the right
mix, and Dennis Rouse gave me the perfect mix.
You have to head off fungal disease and insects that
like to eat them. I would hold the plants in pots for
about three years so I could see them bloom. I then
selected the plants I thought had the best flower
forms and colors, and I planted them in my yard in
a design, like an opera. I created blooms that come
on in different acts. You have to be a little fanatical
to grow hybrid native azaleas, as you can probably
imagine.”
In April 2016 as the azaleas bloom, Corley will
celebrate his 95th birthday. Although he does not
propagate plants the way he used to, he continues
to welcome local garden clubs, Auburn University
students, and visitors from all over the country
who come to his Loachapoka retreat each spring
to witness the breathtaking beauty.
“I am proud and humbled that people come and
see them bloom,” said Corley. “I enjoy sharing
my knowledge and am glad that people want to
plant them.”
In 1964, Corley purchased some land in
Loachapoka, Alabama, and there were native
azaleas growing on the property. A camellia lover,
Corley set about filling the property with more
than 1,000 camellias that he grew from seed. Each
year, as the camellia blooming season ended, Corley
began to appreciate the way the naturally occurring
native deciduous azaleas provided dimension
and additional color in the landscape. As a result,
beginning in the 1970s, he started collecting
native azaleas from the wild and planting them
throughout his expansive property. He soon began
growing native azaleas from seed, and eventually
shared choice selections with fellow native azalea
enthusiasts, Rouse and Smitherman.
Corley’s native azaleas served as parent plants for
many of the hybrids Smitherman created.
Smitherman, in turn, not only named one of the
hybrids ‘Corley’s Cardinal’, he also gave Corley
some of his young hybrids. Corley would then
nurture the young plants in a test garden he
installed on his property, where they would remain
for three to four years. Once the plants proved
to be healthy blooming specimens, they were
incorporated into his 18-acre Loachapoka garden
or given away.
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Journey/Spring 2016
College of Sciences and Mathematics
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