I have long known about this native garden only 35 miles from my home, but somehow had never visited it before this weekend. Now I regret that because it is simply amazing and the plants are well labeled. It’s a great native garden for beginners, both educational and inspirational.
When Lake Junaluska was established in 1913, the founders set aside several areas designated as parks. One such area was a small shaded ravine of approximately one acre where a small stream flowed through, sometimes falling over a natural rock formation.
It became a popular place, but as time passed, the area fell into disuse with poison ivy and undergrowth taking over. The Tuscola Garden Club and the Lake Junaluska Conservation Committee had the idea to convert the area into a nature center with a focus on native plants, trees, and wildflowers. They soon realized this area would be an ideal location to create a preserve for native plants.
Mrs. Corneille Bryan, who was a member of the Tuscola Garden Club, had strong feelings for the beautification of the Garden area and had worked hard to ensure it became a reality. When she died in 1989, her family chose this project as a fitting memorial gift, and work finally began on the Garden in January 1990.
Volunteers cleared the site of debris and undergrowth to establish trails, bridges, steps, fences, and benches. Mrs. Maxilla Evans, a knowledgeable botanist with a large collection of native plants and the garden’s planting chair-person donated her twenty-five-year collection of native plants.
The founding women had envisioned not a well-manicured orderly garden, but rather a natural habitat filled with wildflowers, trees, shrubs, birds, and butterflies of the beautiful southern Appalachian Mountains. They saw a place of beauty and learning and a quiet peaceful retreat for renewal and reflection.
Since its inception, the Garden has grown to more than five hundred native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. The Garden contributes to the education of students enrolled in the horticulture department of Haywood Community College and the botany classes of Western Carolina University. Elementary school children occasionally visit the garden as part of their study of ecology.
I swear that I will be back next spring for the many ephemerals now sleeping there.
This is the cranefly orchid, tipularia discolor, in bloom. It’s single leaf, green on the top side and burgundy underneath, disappears until the winter.
Another native orchid, rattlesnake plantain, goodyera pubescent, was in bloom. Its leaves are a perennial evergreen.
The third orchid we saw was past its bloom, but one of my favorites: the putty root orchid, aplectrum hyemale. Its pleated leaves die back in summer and grow in winter once the forest canopy has disappeared and it has more access to sunlight. This is an easy one to miss when walking in the woods.
The Cherokee pounded the nuts of the red buckeye, aesculus pavia, into a fine powder that was used in small doses as a muscle relaxant and externally as a poultice to reduce swelling and fight infection in sores. The wood was used in carving.
After a few hours in the native garden, I walked the 3.5 mile lake path and was still enthralled with the native beauty all around me.
There is so much in this world to witness. Again, as Georgia O’Keeffee said, “Take time to look.”