Jut Wingard has had to dodge fluorescent orange cones and torn asphalt to get in and out of his driveway for the past several weeks because of work to widen S.C. 6.

It’s not the first time he’s had to endure major roadwork in front of his home.

There was the time Pilgrim Church Road was paved. And before that, when S.C. 6 was paved — although he doesn’t really remember much about that since he was only about 7 years old.

But he lived on the corner of S.C. 6 and Pilgrim Church Road when the work was done — just like he does now.

Wingard, who will turn 84 in June, grew up in the house that is now part of Wingard’s Nursery and Garden Center, the business he started with his wife 40 years ago and turned over to his daughter and son-in-law 16 months ago.

Now one of the busiest intersections in Lexington County, it was a 34-acre farm when Wingard grew up there, with livestock, cotton, corn, grain and vegetables.

His parents, Herbert and Ethel Wingard, bought the farmhouse at S.C. 6 and Pilgrim Church Road in 1921. Six years later, construction began on the Lake Murray dam. Wingard was almost 4.

The only thing he remembers about that time is having a live-in playmate.

“Everybody had a boarder in their house,” Wingard said. “We had a family living with us who had a small child about the same age as me.”

Wingard’s father was a deputy sheriff and later a town policeman, which meant most of the farming duties fell to Wingard and his two brothers.

“He had income and we had to do the farming,” Wingard said with a smile.

Wingard graduated from Lexington High in 1940. He played football, was president of his junior class and president of the Future Farmers of America.

He served three years in the Army during World War II, and went to work for South Carolina Electric & Gas in 1946 after his discharge.

Wingard married Marjorie in 1948. After living with his parents for a couple of years, they built a home across the street from his childhood home.

The Wingards grew azaleas there and by 1968 had too many for their yard. So they started selling the extras. He still has the sign he used to sell those first azaleas for 50 cents each — the same ones that sell for about $5 today.

That was the start of Wingard’s Nursery.

“We put money back in that we made, and it grew from there. We didn’t intend for it to be this big. It just grew on us.”

He retired from his job as district manager for SCE&G in 1983, and that’s when the nursery really started to grow.

Now, the room Jut shared with his two brothers is an office. The back porch, where his mother’s washing machine sat near her African violets, is a place to buy gardening supplies and tools. And the formal sitting room that the grandchildren rarely visited is a gift shop run by two of those grandchildren.

Even though he’s retired, people can still expect to see Wingard driving around the nursery with his golf cart.

“Just to see what they’re doing,” Marjorie said.

His family isn’t surprised.

“Daddy is not one to sit in a chair,” said Gail Wingard Buff, one of Jut and Marjorie’s four daughters.

Along with regular visits to the nursery, he works a small tree farm, and helps family members with various projects.

“He has a pretty soft heart,” said Delores Wingard Steinhauser, who took over the nursery with her husband, Wally. “He’s always helpful to people when they need it. He would never turn his back on somebody.”

Steinhauser says her father is the hardest-working person she’s ever known.

“He is constantly busy and constantly productive and enjoys work more than he enjoys vacation. He just has to always be accomplishing something.”

JUDSON ‘JUT’ WINGARD

Age: 83

Family: Wife, Marjorie; daughters Gail, Lynn, Delores, Phyllis

School/work: Graduated Lexington High, 1940; Army, three years; SCE&G, 1946-83; started Wingard’s Nursery, 1967

On being retired: “I am trying to be retired, but it is a big change in life.”

On changes he has seen while living on the same corner for 83 years: “It’s a lot different. There are just more people.”