Mignon Durham

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.”

I am not a fan of the summer heat and humidity. Since I don’t have a vegetable garden, there really isn’t much to do except for some weeding, deadheading, and making plant divisions. I love sharing plants from my garden with friends! Fortunately, we have been receiving enough rainfall that I don’t even need to water my dahlias.

Summer really is the time when I can just observe how my gardens have become a true pollinator garden and sanctuary for wildlife. Speaking of wildlife, there was a visitor one morning while I was out deadheading!

He moved so quietly and skillfully through the patio furniture. He didn’t upset a thing and when he was aware of my presence, he immediately retreated down the stone steps to my woodland garden, being on his best behavior.

Only in the late summer do we get this special light through the woods.

An early summer bloomer in my garden is bottlebrush buckeye, aesculus parviflora. Useful as an understory planting, its long fluffy white flower clusters are spectacular.

The summer native perennials are also coming into their glory right about now.

The cardinal flower self seeds, so my woodland garden has nice color throughout. And there is also the great blue lobelia, lobelia siphilitica, spreading its beauty. This flower requires bumblebees for pollination. Bees use the lower three fused petals as a landing pad. A bee of correct weight will depress these petals on its way to the flower’s nectar, lowering the stigma to deposit the pollen on the bees back. Isn’t nature full of marvelous design and relationships?

One of my favorite summer flowers is Joe Pye weed, eutrochium purpureum. It is a larval host to several moth species. After my recent class on moths at the Cullowhee Native Plant Symposium, I am even more delighted to have it throughout my woodland garden.

While they are not native, summer is also the beginning of the dahlia season. Oh, the assortment of colors and shapes will delight me for several months to come. This has been a bittersweet dahlia season for me because we lost Brian Killingsworth earlier this year. He taught me everything I know about dahlias, and he is sorely missed.

Gardens are all about sharing, and I had the great honor of hosting a group of gardeners at Devotion. They are taking a weeklong deep dive into the public and private gardens of Asheville, all thanks to Bobbie Pell with RoadScholar. Thank you for bringing such an interesting group and I look forward to two more of your groups in the fall.

Summer is a time of reflecting how many people have influenced me and my desire to garden. Nancy Duffy stands at the top of that list. As founder of Muddy Boots Garden Design, she led me on this 10 year journey to create Devotion and her friendship means the world to me.

Although his influence isn’t so direct, Frederick Law Olmsted shaped the vision of what public gardens can be. We are celebrating his 200th birthday this year and each time I wander at the Biltmore Estate or the NC Arboretum, I say my thanks and appreciate the vision he had.

In truth, I am grateful for these lazy, hazy summer days. It means that I can retreat indoors and watch a fabulous documentary about Mary Reynolds, an Irish, world-renowned “reformed” landscape designer who was the youngest ever gold medal winner at the Chelsea Flower Show. In her application for the 2001 Chelsea Flower Show, she wrote: “People travel the world over to visit untouched places of natural beauty, yet modern gardens pay little heed to the simplicity and beauty of these environments…those special places we all must preserve and protect, each in his own way, before they are lost forever.” I know first hand the rewards of her belief that we plant gardens to nurture our land and ourselves.

I just had the great pleasure of attending this four day gathering of about 400 self-described native plant and pollinator garden nerds at Western Carolina University. This conference was originally founded in 1984 by the TVA and two of my field trip guides, Larry Mellichamp and Dan Pittillo, were instrumental in leading this movement of significant economic and ecological impact. The combination of field trips, workshops, lectures and social networking opportunities have become the model for similar native plant gatherings around the country.

It began with a rare rain-free field trip led by Larry Mellichamp to the Highlands Botanical Garden and Biological Station. It’s impossible to adequately describe this wonderland which is celebrating its 60th birthday this year. Precipitation is higher than at any other site in eastern North America, averaging 80-100 inches annually, and the mild summer temperatures are due to its elevation of 4117′. I learned new plants and celebrated “old friends.”

The afternoon was spent in two private gardens lovingly tended by Dollie Swanson and Glenda Zahner.

I thoroughly enjoyed the next full day of lectures and conversations with so many folks. The vendors brought books and rare plants for sale. Of course I came home with new books for my library, thanks to Chris Wilcox, owner of City Lights Bookstore. But I also needed a break from all this plant world so I visited the Bardo Fine Art Museum on the WCU campus. I found glass art there that is all about nature.

The following morning was spent with Dan Pittillo at the Pittillo Family Nature Preserve, in partnership with the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust. It is open to the public with some parking in this gorgeous mountain cove.

While this conference was all about the many native plants that support pollinators, I guess the plant that most captures the public’s interest in supporting the monarch butterflies is the milkweed. But there are so many plants in our biodiverse habitat here in western NC that are often the single host for so many of our pollinators. In fact I learned that my trillium cuneatum, commonly called Sweet Betsy, is the host for yellow jacket pollination. I will be more kind to those beasts now that I know. For those of you motivated to add more native plants in your garden, here is a very handy website that provides information by zip code. Couldn’t be easier!

We all need to learn more and accept the fact that if your garden isn’t getting eaten, it’s not doing its job. And I am happy to have met Kim Bailey of Milkweed Meadows Farm in Hendersonville, NC. If her enthusiasm about taking care of this planet doesn’t infect you, no-one could. And then I urge you to attend next year’s symposium. The knowledge and networking is priceless!

I finally took a vacation, my first since covid began two years ago! It was just what I needed to clear my mind and refresh my spirit. Traveling with Sherri and Jason Miller is action-packed with vigorous hiking and also slow-strolling through botanical gardens, art museums and galleries. Did I mention food? Yes, they are foodies as well, especially when it comes to sampling mole and red and green chilies.

There is so much to share, but my focus for this blog will be centered on the wisdom of the ancient cliff dwellers (800 AD – 1200 AD) and their incredible ability to cultivate crops, create amazing pottery, jewelry and baskets despite the white, western story which says there was no culture among these peoples. The truth of it all is that they carefully managed the limited water in their environment. Water is the life-giving element that we too often take for granted today. In fact, our tour guide showed us that these dwellings were more about access to water that seeps through the rock layers than it was about protection. The pueblo peoples were not at war.

Another highlight of the trip was to visit Georgia O’Keeffe’s home and studio in Abiquiu, NM. Long a fan of her art, I knew little of her extensive one acre organic garden. She employed Suazo as a gardener, and today his grandchildren still care for the home and garden just as Ms. O’Keeffe would have wanted. He understood the success of her garden depended on ancient water rights from the Rio Chama through an irrigation system know as acequias, or adobe canals. From 8am until 10am, only on Mondays, did she have water! Community water rights are a necessary ingredient for survival, even today.

When you meet a garden of both meaning and beauty, you know it. When you meet a landscape that speaks to the layered evolution and history of this planet, your entire sympathetic nervous system lets you know – whether you could articulate it or not. You know when you enter a gardener’s garden. And you know when it’s a garden or landscape of spirit.

To walk into the Abuqiui, NM home and garden of innovative and groundbreaking twentieth century American artist Georgia O’Keefffe is to walk into such a space – interconnected to an iconic and sacred landscape that stretches as far as the eye can see. It is both open and enclosed, it is rich and spare, it is colorful and monochromatic, it is productive and contemplative.

Georgia O’Keeffe is famously quoted: “Take time to look.” This trip was an important reminder of this practice in everyday living, and so a refrigerator magnet came home with me.

I learned new plants and I recognized old friends. This area of northern New Mexico had not received rain in three months before our arrival. In fact, the wildfires almost aborted this trip for us. However, we brought the rain with us and the plants put on their show for us!

This is an important forage plant for wild animals and nectar-insects. Provides cover and nesting material. Hopis dug the roots in fall and boiled them in water for coughs. Spring twigs were made into tea for indigestion.

People have used Barbary fig throughout history in traditional medicine systems as a natural treatment for wounds, liver disease, glaucoma, and digestive issues. It is also used to create natural dye and vegan leather products.

The native tribes of Pueblo and Navajo used the tree extensively in their spiritual practices.

Its roots were sometimes used to make Kachina dolls and other objects of worship used in traditional religious ceremonies. It was also used as a source of medicine. The community doctors would use the bark and leaves of the trees to make concoctions that were used to treat aches, pains and skin irritations.

Others used the tree to make yellow dyes. The dye comes from the tree’s buds, which have chemicals that, once dried, produce the yellow pigment.

The fibers from this plant were used by Native Americans to make ropes, nets and other items.

The flower buds can be dried, boiled or roasted and eaten much like okra. The spines were removed and the canes used as walking sticks.

Most yuccas have dry hard fruits, but the fruits of banana yucca are fleshy and succulent. They look roughly like short fat green bananas, thus the name. These fruits were a traditional food of the Apache and Navajo. They were prepared by roasting or baking, stripping out the seeds, pounding the remaining flesh into a pulp, forming the pulp into flat cakes, and sun-drying them for later use. The resulting product is said to be nutritious, sweet, and delicious. The fruits were often picked before maturity and ripened off the plant to keep wildlife from eating them before they could be harvested.

Besides food, yuccas have many other traditional uses. The leaf blades can be woven into baskets, used to make brushes, or with the fleshy leaf tissue removed the remaining stiff fibers can be made into a combination needle and thread. The roots are prized as a natural soap.

This trip was akin to going through a door, a beautiful door, uncertain of all the joys to be found but surely a celebration of new experiences with good friends, one I will always cherish.

I have traveled to so many wonderful communities across the southeast to share my book with friends, old and new. I am quite certain that the two I did in June will always stand out because they were both warm and welcoming and yet so very different.

On the 4th of June, I did an author’s talk at the Old Orchard Creek General Store in Lansing, NC. I can attest that this is a small mountain town with a BIG heart and lots of energy! Walter Clark is the owner but you can tell what a special person he is by the way his community respects and adores him. Sherri and Jason Miller joined me there so that Jason could read one of his poems from my book. That Jason so graciously allowed me to publish two of his poems means the world to me.

As I drove home through the town of West Jefferson, I saw this incredible mural painted by my dear friend Robert Johnson, who has sadly left this earth all too soon. Thank you Robert for the beauty you added to this world.

I gratefully had five days at home to tend to Devotion. I discovered a rascally groundhog burrowing along the courtyard boulder wall.

So, Lewis Owenby to the rescue as he filled the gaps between the boulders with smaller rocks. Now the groundhog can move on out.

And after that melodrama, the nerves were rattled so I did what I always do….go out with a camera to see what’s happening.

Then on June 11 I was at the Sara P. Duke Gardens for Breakfast in the Blooms. What an honor to be invited back to my alma mater to talk about the book. The Duke Campus is worlds apart from Lansing, NC, but both places really speak to my soul. And oh how the gardens have grown in scale and scope since I was an undergraduate in 1970!

The 6.5 acre Blomquist Garden of Native Plants is filled with more than 900 species and varieties of regional native plants. Many of them found a home in this garden after an approved plant-rescue operation from land facing development. I particularly loved the carnivorous plant collection because I had just taken a zoom class about these plants earlier in the week.

A dear friend, Norris Barnes, told me about a book titled Bittersweet by Susan Cain. I want to share her sentiments with you: “There is a melancholic direction in life I call “bittersweet”: a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. The bittersweet is also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death – bitter and sweet – are forever paired.” That sums up so perfectly what I have been feeling these days.

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.” – Mary Oliver, Upstream

I have had the great joy of hosting several garden tours at Devotion this spring. In my garden library is a book by Betty Montgomery titled “A Four-Season Southern Garden.” What a small world—Betty was one of my visitors. I was thrilled to meet such an acclaimed gardener and make a new friend.

Two artists, Jennifer Edwards and Benjamin Quinlan (@benjonquin on Instagram), came for a weekend to draw in the garden. What fun it was to see what they chose to paint and their very different art styles.

While the artists were at work, I simply took my camera around Devotion to photograph the season.

Then it was off for a week of hiking and public garden visits.

Peaks of Otter is an historical area along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Thomas Jefferson talks about the singular beauty found there in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. To celebrate Sue Wasserman’s 60th birthday, we hiked Sharp Top Mountain, Fallingwater Cascades Trail, and Harkening Hill. Each trail had its unique collection of wildflowers and varied degree of difficulty. I can honestly say that the 1.5 miles up Sharp Top is some of the most challenging hiking in my life, but oh, the rewards!

Then I was off to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for Origami in the Garden. It was a delightfully cool and cloudy morning in the garden as I reflected on my southern roots.

Origami in the Garden is the largest-ever exhibition by artists Jennifer and Kevin Box. It features 19 installations of nearly 70 larger-than-life sculptures inspired by origami – the centuries-old Japanese art of folding paper.

This garden was so incredibly well labeled! A slow stroll will definitely provide introductions to old and new friends planted so meticulously. Origami in the Garden is on view through October 16, 2022. Don’t miss it.

I have not traveled during the past two years of COVID. Fortunately, I had just returned from a month of trekking throughout Patagonia (Argentina and Chile) into Ushuaia in early March, 2020, so my travel bug had been well fed. Now having received my second booster, I felt it was time to venture out, albeit very carefully. So I planned a trip to Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware to visit gardens I have long wanted to see and to catch up with friends, old and new. This emergence into a new sense of “normal” was divine!

In the garden this time of year, there is a moment that happens: a coming together of energy that is bigger than anything you can imagine. The luminous bluebell wood or the quivering carpet of ostrich fern and trillium create a particular energy that you must simply pause and feel the surge. The very nature of the moment is that it is fleeting, and maybe just this once: the light falling a certain way, the particularities of the year or that you are just lucky enough to be there when it all comes together.

The first visit was to a private garden in Ruxton, Maryland. Designed by Kurt Bluemel and lovingly tended for 50 years by Penney and AC Hubbard, Walnut Hill is an extraordinary Garden of Eden. On Walnut Hill – The Evolution of a Garden is the story of this garden and is beautifully written by Kathy Hudson. I had the good fortune of attending their Zoom presentation through Wing Haven Gardens in 2021, so I mustered the nerve to invite myself and Chantal Boisvert for a visit. We were welcomed with open arms, very cool breezes, and glorious sunshine.

My next visit was to Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton, MD. There you will find 22 acres of award-winning gardens with more than 100 remarkable topiaries and a mile-long nature walk. Harvey Ladew began his garden in 1937 and the Garden Club of America awarded him the prestigious Distinguished Achievement Award for “creating and maintaining the most outstanding topiary garden in the country without professional help.” 

Day Three took me to the Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. In 1703, George Pierce purchased 402 acres of land from William Penn, despite the fact that the land actually belonged to the native Lenni Lenape tribe. 200 years later Pierre du Post purchased the property primarily to preserve the trees. But as we know now, he didn’t stop there. Much of what we see today – the majesty and magic that is Longwood Gardens – was shaped by the remarkable vision and versatility of Pierre du Pont, one of our nation’s most extraordinary citizens.

Day Four was a marathon day that began at Mt Cuba Center in Hockessin, Delaware.

Mr. and Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland were visionary in their approach to conservation, and in their vision for Mt. Cuba Center. Mrs. Copeland summed up their ambition for Mt. Cuba Center in what has become our founding intention: “I want this to be a place where people will learn to appreciate our native plants and to see how these plants can enrich their lives so that they, in turn, will become conservators of our natural habitats.”

Here you can explore more than two miles of scenic trails throughout 1,000 acres of natural lands, which are managed to promote ecosystem health and function, support environmental education and scientific research, and preserve the character of the regional landscape. These areas are maintained in their more natural state and take on a “wilder” aesthetic, as opposed to the carefully curated gardens.

I needed to rest my eyes after seeing so many plants, so I dropped in at the Copeland Sculpture Garden in Wilmington, Delaware.

Last stop for the day was at Winterthur Gardens in Winterthur, Delaware.

The garden is a result of the artistic vision of its creator, Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969) and is surrounded by nearly 1,000 acres of meadows, farmland, and waterways. The views in every direction are important to the whole. The paths are an integral part of the overall design, curving rather than straight, following the contours of the land, passing around trees, and drawing walkers into the garden.

I returned to Devotion for one short night then headed to Juniper Level Botanic Garden and Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Juniper Level Botanic Garden (JLBG) was established in 1986 by plantsman Tony Avent. The garden actively promotes and preserves botanic diversity by bridging the gap between botany and horticulture through plant study, identification, educational outreach, global plant exploration, and by selecting, breeding, and propagating new and little known perennials to share with plant researchers, botanic gardens, and gardeners around the world. The garden philosophy is to promote botanical diversity by assembling the largest collection possible of growable, winter/summer hardy ornamental plants for our region and display them in an aesthetic, sustainably-maintained, healthy garden setting. This philosophy includes obtaining plants from all over the world with a strong emphasis on North American native plants, realizing that these are, as a group, no more or less adaptable than plants from foreign lands. Plants are obtained though plant exploration, plant breeding, as well as exchange and purchase from others.

Tony and his wife Michelle are in the process of establishing an operational foundation and fundraising to turn this property over to the JC Raulston Arboretum/NCSU for its future wellbeing. Please consider making a donation.

Visiting these gardens during the abundance of spring has checked off the only “bucket list” that I have ever had. Now I am sated and will cherish these precious memories and the unfolding floral ballet at Devotion for years to come.

I think I can actually hear the flowers and leaves unfurling at this time of year. I know I can see their growth every day. Abundance is everywhere. I am especially grateful for this joyous rebirth after a particularly challenging winter for me.

Devotion reminds me that wintering is a necessary element for growth. What is more precious than the unfurling of a cinnamon fern?

The Japanese maple ‘Katsura’ lights up the woodland garden.

Spring is a time for going slowly through a woodland garden. So many ephemerals and other perennials fill the forest floor. Perhaps no one species gives me more joy than the trillium.

I am in such a rush to see what’s happening in the garden that I would miss this sweet flower except I know where she lives so I look closely for her!

Then there’s the extravagant display of the foamflower that you absolutely cannot miss.

Solomon’s seal is another gift from Mother Nature as a result of removing the prolific exotic invasives that had choked the life from so many perennials. While bleeding heart is a native perennial, I ordered ‘Valentine’ from Plant Delights in Raleigh, NC. Thank you Tony Avent for your tireless devotion to providing such amazing specimens for every garden need.

I quickly learned perennials that naturalize easily is nature’s way of eliminating weeds and preventing erosion. So, I mimic Mother Nature by adding Virginia bluebells and wood poppy to the already present geranium.

After Tropical Storm Fred dropped 17″ of rain here in August, 2021, we had to restore Robinson Creek with lots of heavy equipment. I was delighted to see that this creekside perennial survived.

Mother Nature has given me many riches, but that doesn’t preclude me from adding more….no one believes that less is more in a garden! I purchased this woodland orchid from Plant Delights in 2021, hoping against hope that it would adapt from its Japanese homeland to my garden.

And then there are the many gifts from friends that remind me of their presence in my life every time I walk through the garden.

I met Gary Merrill at a woodland garden workshop sponsored by the Southern Highlands Preserve at Lake Toxaway, NC in 2015. We have remained friends and despite his cancer diagnosis, he remains committed to rewilding the many acres around his home. Each spring around Earth Day I meet him for a hike on his very vertical property. Last year he gifted me with one of the plentiful delphiniums that I so adore! Gardens are all about relationships with people and with nature.

Sieglinde Anderson, an extraordinary landscape designer in Asheville, NC gave me this beauty.

My garden designer, Nancy Duffy, is always introducing me to new plants every time I visit her garden Acorn Hill. This has become a spectacular addition to my spring garden.

I am also reminded that I garden in an effort to create the habitat necessary for the birds, bees, butterflies to survive.

One would think that having Devotion right out my door would be enough stimulation, but oh no, I need the NC Arboretum for more treasure hunting. I was not disappointed!

I especially love the first sighting of “old friends” when I walk the trails there.

So many violets!

And then there’s the brief bloom of trailing arbutus. You have to pay attention to see this tiny one!

And thanks to Bill and Alice Hart, I know where to find the Oconee Bells.

Dwarf crested iris abound at Devotion, but they really light up the trails at the Arboretum.

Then there is the saying goodbye to one of my favorite woodland perennials, the trout lily. See you next year!

I simply cannot imagine my life without this passion for plants. I don’t remember who said it, but it’s true: “When you have all the time in the world, you don’t need to go anywhere. Just be where you are.”

Spring has definitely arrived in my part of the Appalachian Mountains…at an elevation of 2700′, I can head into full spring or drop back into winter, with only a few minutes’ drive from my house. We have had lots of wind which has me wearing my puffy jacket in the mornings and seeking full sun for warmth.

Spring ephemerals give me such childlike joy! I have spent enough time here to know exactly where and when to expect them, but my heart still races with every morning’s meandering.

“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace” – May Sarton

This morning after my garden meander, I went to the Biltmore Estate for “Monet and Friends”, a light and musical exposition about the Impressionists. These artists were groundbreaking in their depiction of everyday life with such a new and exuberant style of painting.

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to be idle and blessed….” Mary Oliver

Revel in the light and the beauty that is Spring.

I have been absolutely distraught watching what’s happening in Ukraine. None of it makes sense short of my declaring Putin a narcissistic, power-hungry maniac. Between his disrespect for human life and the pandemic creating so much anxiety and discord, I have to get outside to calm my soul.

I am blessed that I also have many events scheduled to present DEVOTION: Diary of an Appalachian Garden across the state. On March 19, I met many friends at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC for an author talk and book signing. The real treat was having poet Jason Miller read a poem that he so graciously allowed me to publish in the book.

On March 21, I had my first visit to Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden in Kernersville, NC. Paul Ciener loved horticulture. He toured great gardens around the world, studying the plants and garden styles he encountered. All the while, he dreamed big. His dream was to create a great garden in the heart of the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina. It would be a gift back to the region that had given so much to him.

Since his death in 1998, The Welcome Center, Horticulture Center and garden space on 5 acres have been completed in the Kernersville historic downtown district. It is the only such public garden between Raleigh and Charlotte. When totally completed, it will have more than 25 garden areas including Piedmont Woodland, Japanese, Wetland, Conifer, Greenhouse, Amphitheatre and Children’s Learning Garden. The site is a place of education, beauty and enjoyment for area residents and visitors from all parts of the country.

I was given a fabulous tour by Kristin Henning, Program Officer and Josh Williams, Garden Manager. An awe-inspiring meandering, indeed. Then I led a short presentation about Devotion. What a perfect spring evening.

On March 22, I was welcomed by Jon Roethling, Director of Reynolda Gardens in Winston-Salem, NC to speak in the Lord and Burnham Greenhouse, completed in 1913. Going home has never felt more special!

Gertrude Jekyll wrote in From A Gardener’s Testament: “I hold the firm belief that the purpose of a garden is to give happiness, and repose of mind.” Truer words were never written.