Jungle Fever

Ask Brian Williams, 25, why he has amassed a notable collection of exotic tropical plants when men his age in Louisville are more likely to be playing pickup basketball as a hobby. Without hesitation, he answers: "Rambo."

Rambo?

Here's how you connect the dots.

As a preteen, Williams began helping out at his dad's business, Berl Williams Landscaping on Preston Highway near the Bullitt and Jefferson county line in Kentucky. His job was watering endless rows of potted plants at the 5-acre nursery. It was not a fit.

"I was forced into it as a child. I never really cared for it," Williams said.

He much preferred the "Rambo" movies, and a favorite part of his childhood was "playing army in my own jungle." His dad collects palms, many of them planted outside in the family's back yard as well as at the nursery.

Still, horticulture was not on the radar screen during high school either, a period Williams recalls held more hijinks than scholarship. He said he did his share of cutting around and cutting up Bullitt County countryside with a go-cart, or losing arrows in the neighbors' roofs during an archery phase or having memorable administrative encounters after making and setting off stink bombs at North Bullitt High School, his alma mater.

Williams, who lifts weights four times week with an ambition to bench press 400 pounds, never had the grades to play football, he said, but his energy and bulk eventually were put to use in the family business for something more strenuous than watering. By 18 he was conscripted into "hardscape" work — digging — that eventually developed into a specialty — constructing ornamental ponds.

That's when he met aroids, a family (Araceae) that includes many genera, including Philodendron, Arum, Caladium, Alocasia, Colocasia, Dracunculus, Photos, Spathiphyllum and Amorphophallus. He fell in love first with a spiny-stemmed Crytosperm johnstonii from the Solomon Islands that he saw at the Atlanta Botanic Garden. "It took me three years to (acquire) it," Williams said.

The hunt was on for what would become his personal jungle.

Today, his collection of tropicals fills a greenhouse 80 feet long by 30 feet wide with a roof 22 feet high at the apex. In summer, many plants are planted outside to create a display garden of tender and, in some cases, surprisingly hardy tropicals.

Williams said he basically lives at the greenhouse when he's not out on a landscaping job, which means he is usually around from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekends and weekdays and is happy to have visitors. And, in an informal system where nothing is really labeled or priced, he is happy to sell starts or entire big plants or take an order for propagation.

Tropicals are a rarity in Louisville's horticultural market; certainly there is no other venue with the depth and exotica of Williams' collection. In addition to many species from all the genera mentioned, he has a selection of Nepenthes, the tropical carnivorous pitcher plants, as well as some hardy North American pitcher plants.

Look, too, for the Ensete, an ancestor of the modern banana tree (Musa), which Williams also has in wide variety, including one that has been planted outside for three years.

His plants, which come from far-flung places, including Australia, Malaysia, South America, Indonesia and Borneo, produce a staggering impression, with strange flowers in bold forms, striking variegations and incredible textures.

A visit is an indelible botanical experience because the impact in the greenhouse, as crowded as a jungle in some places, is sometimes almost literally stunning with leaves 4 feet long and flower spikes 5 feet tall.

Just keeping up with the plants, which can grow at surprising rates, is "tons of work. More than one man can do, I can tell you," said Williams. He has a few helpers who work on the weekends in exchange for plants, which helps free him up to renovate the greenhouse, which has a glass roof and solid masonry walls, into a conservatory with rock walls, meandering paths and a central hill feature.

"This whole thing really doesn't pay for itself, to tell the truth. It's a hobby that's gone out of control," said Williams, who in the next breath plots its expansion.

"I trade plants with people all over the world. One of these days, I'm going to those places."

Source: The Courier-Journal