Head Ornamentals Inc. / Head's Select Inc.

As the botanical brains behind Head Ornamentals, Inc. and Head’s Select, Inc., Bob Head has spent his life pursuing a passion for breeding, growing, and selling plants.

Bob spent his early years in Clemson, South Carolina, where his father managed a beef cattle farm. During this time, his family started a fish bait business, since they lived near a large lake and there was a market for bait shops and suppliers to accommodate recreational fishermen.

Around 1960, his family moved to Georgia to manage a large fish bait/worm casting business. Since the worm castings were a source of superior organic matter, they began selling it along with organic compost and pine bark mulch to nearby nurseries and golf courses.

During his years in the bait business, Bob began growing vegetables and finally sold some to his favorite school teacher. Finding this pastime enjoyable, as he got to be outside doing what he loved in the fresh air and sunshine, a lifelong passion for plant growing was born.

Moving back to Oconee County, South Carolina, around 1970, his family partnered with a local nurseryman, forming Oconee Nursery (which would later become Head-Lee Nursery, Inc.).

During the early years of the nursery, Bob managed a landscape crew while completing his B.S. degree in Ornamental Horticulture at Clemson University. After graduation he continued with the nursery, and in 1980 he started managing the wholesale propagation business at the nursery. Later, he also worked with Clemson University as an Area Horticulture Agent for 15 years and consulted with the local apple industry that was so prevalent in that era.

Always fascinated with plant breeding and trying to create new and interesting cultivars to introduce to the nursery industry, Bob spent his early professional life pursuing his hobby of plant breeding. After his extension work, he returned full time to the nursery business and continued with his plant breeding hobby.

In 2000 he and his wife Lisa started their own plant breeding and introduction business, Head Ornamentals, Inc. Later, in 2008, they added Head’s Select, Inc., to their business portfolio to expand to further markets.

Although he retired from the family nursery in 2010 to focus on his businesses full time, his family continues to operate the same retail nursery today.

Q & A with Bob the Breeder:

How did you get into plant breeding?

Beginning as a hobby at the nursery and fostered by customers’ desire to have better performing plants for their landscape or home garden, I first made selections of indoor ferns and then began cross-pollinating flowering houseplants like Peace Lilies, Crossandra, and even Cactus. My interest only increased from there, leading me to breeding outdoor landscape plants.

What type plants are you most passionate about breeding?

Although I love experimenting with Azaleas, Camellias, Daylillies, Hardy Hibiscus, Big Leaf Rhododendron, and flowering ornamental Cherries, I really enjoy trying to develop the right plant for the right environment. I am always on the lookout for new plants and am constantly searching for plants that are unusual or do not fit what is normal for that plant species or variety. Since plants mutate and change all the time, many of these changes make for better usage in the landscape.

Also, I try to select superior forms of native plants with better qualities and growth habits for the smaller landscape areas of today, which will lead to more native plant use in the home landscape.

You are well-known for your line of Rebloom™ Azaleas. What got you interested in breeding Azaleas?

When I was 14 years old, an older nurseryman introduced me to many types of Satsuki Azaleas, Big Leaf Rhododendrons, and Glendale Azaleas. Some of those varieties would bloom in the fall, and that sparked an interest to develop a breeding line of repeat blooming Azaleas.