James Thomas "Tom" Woodham (1943- ) was born in Bishopville, South Carolina, and earned his bachelor's and master's degrees studying horticulture at Clemson University in 1965 and 1968. Woodham served with the United States Marine Corps from 1969-1972 during the Vietnam War. After his military service, he moved to Atlanta and co-founded The Potted Plant, a garden design nursery, along with Ryan Gainey (1944-2016) and Eve Davis, with whom he partnered for 19 years. Woodham also worked as garden editor and senior editor for Veranda magazine for 16 years. During that time he cultivated numerous friendships with well-known gardeners and garden writers around the world such as Penelope Hobhouse, Sir Roy Strong, and Dr. Julia Trevelyan Oman. Woodham is a contributing author of Perennials: Towards a Continuous Bloom (1991) and lectures and writes on a variety of horticultural, gardening, and garden design topics. Woodham serves as a Lifetime Trustee for the Atlanta Botanical Garden and helped establish the annual Gardens for Connoisseurs Tour in 1984. He is a past member of the Cherokee Garden Library Board and served on the Library's Acquisistions Committee for many years. Woodham is married to his long-time partner, Wilson H. Ellis Jr. (1951- ).