Tony Avent

Tony Avent is the owner of Plant Delights Nursery, a retail mail-order nursery specializing in rare, unusual, and native plants, located in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a nationally-known plantsperson and has taken several trips for plant exploration to Mexico, China, Korea, Argentina, South Africa, and other countries around the world in order to collect and introduce new exotic species of ornamental plants to North American gardens.

He is also owner of Juniper Level Botanical Gardens, one of the top 5 most diverse collections in the U.S. with over 27,000 different kinds of plants, and was instrumental in the development of the JC Raulston Arboretum also in Raleigh.

Besides hybridizing several other genera, Tony has been involved in hybridizing Hosta since the early 1990s. A few of the many cultivars he has introduced include ‘Abba Dabba Do’, ‘Andy Taylor’, ‘Elvis Lives’, ‘Outhouse Delight’, ‘Potomac Pride’ and ‘Tattoo’.