On the QT | The Official Newsletter of GWA April-May 2016 | Page 28

Obituaries
JUDITH KNOTT TYLER
The Earth lost a very special sister on March 18, 2016 — Judith Knott Tyler. Most
of us knew her as Judy or Jude, and as the other half of a lifelong partnership
with her husband, Dick, and hellebores. What presented as pneumonia just two
weeks earlier quickly revealed an untreatable lung cancer.
In 1983, the Tylers opened a nursery on the farm that has been in Judith’s family
for five generations offering choice perennials for shade gardens, including hellebores. At one time, Pine Knot Farms (now Pine Knot Hellebore Farms) sold 2,000
different kinds of perennials. But a trip to England changed that for the Tylers.
In the early 1990s, Judith and Dick visited English gardens where they saw what
was happening with hellebore breeding, and decided to put their focus on just
those plants. Jude said, “Once we saw all the advancements in hellebore breeding, we wanted to be a part of it, so we started over.”
Those who knew Judy will remember her as gentle, kind, and always with a sparkle in her eyes. You