pearson's falls- polk county, north carolina

Well over a hundred years ago, an employee of the Southern Railway was scouting land in southwest North Carolina.  He would remember one particular place of beauty and was able to purchase it for his family homestead. Now known as Pearson's Falls, this property's mountain glen has been open to the public ever since the Tryon Garden Club acquired the 268 acres in 1931 in order to preserve this scenic attraction and its  native woodland flora.

An admission fee is charged by a resident caretaker. The site, open year-round, lies just off what used to be the major road (Hwy 176) between Henderson and Polk Counties. This two laner has plenty of narrow curves and kudzu covered embankments. Tourist cabins used to dot this stretch of Pacolet River valley before I-26 made the route obsolete. Visiting Pearson Falls is well worth the back road route and the $5 adult ticket.

On the hike up to see Pearson's Falls I was intrigued by the large number of wild native hydrangea canes that seemed to crowd the trail- Hydrangea aborescens is also called smooth hydrangea.  Dried brown clusters of the summer flowers still hung on, helping me make the positive identification. Come March I would wager there is  a good show of early spring ephemerals between the massive mountain laurel shrubs that seem to clamber everywhere.  I'd pay to see that.

purple is not my favorite color BUT

It is hard not to like the Ironweeds. They really do look like "weeds" if your definition of a weed is something tall and not quick to flower. Veronia noveboracensis is one of those 6-8 foot tall stalks that sometimes falls over and sometimes dies back after a couple of years.  So it might not make a bestseller list. But if something looks good in September; naturalizes in dry and wet soil; attracts birds, bugs and butterflies; and has a super cool villainous name.....then, sign me up for a start. It is one of two wildflowers that Charles Frazier mentions more than once in Cold Mountain. I am not sure why I remember that.... (the other is Joe Pye weed).

from my yard

From the Golden Nature Guide "Flowers: A Guide to Familiar American Wildflowers" Golden Press, 1964.

staghorn sumac

Staghorn sumac is one of those native shrub-like trees (or tree-like shrubs?) that I have wanted in my yard for some time. I am out of room for even this 10-15 tall beauty...but if I lose my golden retriever sized chaste tree sapling, then Rhus typhina 'will be the next candidate for that slot. This picture is of a cultivar called 'tiger eyes' that sits on one of the terrace beds in Sarah P. Duke Gardens. Its yellowish green leaves may be a bit much for some folks but I think the color would be perfect surrounded by the darker green foliage of  Carolina allspice or cherry laurel. The more everyday Rhus that you might find growing along the Blue Ridge Parkway has darker green leaves. Staghorn sumac should not be conufused with the weedy and invasive tree-of-heaven which has similar leaves. You can count on the sumac to colonize by suckers, even on sites that are dry or have poor soil-- a perfect choice for a steep embankment that you do not wish to mow or fertilize. I should also mention that the Staghorn sumac is probably best known for its bright red fall color.

roadside attraction

One long side of my yard is bordered by a fairly busy road in southwest central Durham. When we first moved to the house six years ago, I came close to planting a row of  broad leaf evergreen and deciduous shrubs for a quick privacy screen. I am sure it would have looked fine. But I am glad that I made another choice. By leaving room for perennials and some spaced out shrubs, I have been able to keep most of the good sun that this southern exposure offers.  Five years later, I have gobs of  stuff running and reseeding over both sides of my picket fence.  This fall and spring I purposefully put some things in the drainage ditch (see the right-hand side of the picture above). I figured the runoff from the street could use a little filtration….and plus, I get tired of standing on a sharp angle with a weed eater. One of the most trustworthy natives for this type of location is the green headed, or cutleaf coneflower. It promises to be the standout flower for this roadside border come August.

  For an interesting article on planting in the right-of-ways of an urban lot, check out Michael Tortorello's piece in last week's New York Times.  

Butterfly Weed

Asclepias tuberosa  is near the very top of my list of favorite native perennials. Because of its long taproot, it survives drought  but is hard to transplant. This means that you are probably not going to find a gallon of it in the Kmart garden center. The best bet is to buy the seeds and be patient. In a year or two you can have pretty large clump. It is a favorite for butterflies and makes a nice seedpod in the fall. This year I finally have enough that I will not mind cutting a few reddish-orange clusters to bring inside.

The photographed page is from the Golden Nature Guide series, "Flowers: A Guide to Familiar American Wildflowers" published in 1964.

butterfly seed

Asclepias tuberosa or Butterfly Weed is a great native perennial. Mature clumps do not need any coddling once established. These seedpods are striking but it is prized, of course, for its Monarch attracting flower clusters.

Starting them from seed is not a bad idea since their long taproots make them resistant to transplanting.

Trying for a Southern Accent

A ten foot tall thicket of Bottlebrush Buckeye (Aesculus Parviflora) grows inside the Sarah Duke Gardens. This attractive shrub stands near the Millstone Pond in a six acre woodland garden devoted to southeastern native plants. High pines shade a curved gravel walk beside the under-story specimen. The plant, path, and entire property lie within Duke’s middle campus and only a ten minute stroll from my desk at work. Almost two weeks ago, during a Bottlebrush Buckeye site visit on my lunch-break, I was reminded of three reasons why I would recommend this planting choice to anyone with a little patience and room in their garden.

Reason one is that it is a native plant, occurring in forested coastal plains and piedmont areas from South Carolina to Alabama. You can stick one next to some woods in Durham and reasonably expect it to act as if it were born around these parts. Local gardeners should collect all the congratulations such an eco-friendly choice deserves. The more stringent native plant enthusiasts might point out that this is not really a natural occurrence for my clay, since we are north of its real habitat but I like to bend this rule. North Carolina lets the rest of the South mess around with smoked pig dishes without getting too upset—we can share regional delights.

The second reason is in the name. Bottlebrush spikes of creamy flowers, some over 12 inches long, make a wonderful announcement in mid-June. This is a welcome time of flowering for any small tree or medium woodland shrub in the landscape. After a first encounter with one in full bloom, I immediately bought a gallon-sized Aesculus Parviflora of my own. My new purchase from Niche Gardens Nursery near Chapel Hill was not blooming at the time, but it held a promise of flowering candles that would perfectly coincide with my son’s future birthdays. White, bee-attracting, and showy panicles are the hook for many people and likely a good part of the reason why the late founder of the North Carolina Botanical Garden, William Lanier Hunt, referred to it as one of the most beautiful shrubs in the world.

A third reason to try this shrub is a fall leaf which turns the color of a ripe golden delicious apple. I have to confess that I did not learn this from taking autumn notes on my own up-start. Our family’s juvenile Bottlebrush Buckeye is now only 15 inches high and, from a distance, could be confused with a fallen limb. One of its four palmate leaves turned a little yellow before falling off. It has survived the summer drought, but a safe bet is that it will not be featured on any October calendar pages in the next decade.

The Bottlebrush Buckeye cannot be magically transformed from seed to sucker to stand in a season or two. This is the only downside to the shrub’s habit. A relatively thrifty gardener, like me, who settled for one item at the cash register, is confronted with a pitiful stick in winter and slow growth for the first two springs and summers. After talking with a volunteer at the Duke Gardens, I will need to wait about four more years before I can start bragging about the plant from personal experience. This illustrates what greener thumbs already know: you have to have a lot of patience if you want to enjoy the results of a well planned landscape.

One of these days my thicket is going to take off. New roots will form. Spreading offspring will join their parents in a suckering, shading, and thriving gang of Aesculus Parviflora near the west corner of my front yard. My small grove will look nice between the lawn and the road as it rises inside the partial-shade of a pecan tree. It will probably not rival the version at Sarah Duke Gardens, but a check of its progress may draw me home on a lunch break now and again. I am looking forward to it.

Heirloom Needs- continued

This is a continuation of my post from last Thursday.

My great-grandparents would be wowed by the immense and diverse market that supports our modern landscaping, nursery and turf industries. In some ways, smaller yards and less choices could be a good thing. Compared to yester-year, we have countless options for flowers, trees, shrubs and annuals at the big-box garden center. Unfortunately this also means we have a great chance of putting a blooming thing in the ground in April or May that will be dead by August.

In a recent conversation with Jim Ward, Interim Assistant Director of Horticulture at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, I was reminded that we are more likely nowadays to “garden for pleasure” than for food and therefore more likely to put things on life-support (artificial irrigation), put exotics where they were never meant to grow, and sacrifice the time and the money to create lush lawns and flower borders that can be felled by drought.

Losing the hibiscus beside your mailbox to a dry year is one thing. Losing a quarter acre of sod, four Japanese Maples, and twenty azaleas is quite another.

Pass-along plants are a great way to keep your yard local and thriving. Market bulletins and catalogs aside, dependable self-sowing annuals, tough perennials that need dividing, and cuttings from your relatives or neighbors would have been the source for a good bit of ornamental plant material 80-100 years ago. If you saw clematis or a red-hot-poker growing just fine next door or down the road, chances are it would probably do well in your yard. Of course, many gardeners are still reaping the rewards of pass-alongs, especially if they have something to swap and an ear for the story of where their new addition came from and what conditions it likes. You cannot get that same experience at the super-center.

An improvement, in my opinion, on domestic landscape practices from my great-grandparents’ era, is our increased acceptance of native plants. For folks who haven’t discovered how wonderful roadside “weeds” can be, they are missing out. Joe-Pye weed, golden-rod, and asters are commonly recommended by garden writers today for late summer and low maintenance bloom. This is a positive trend that has been gaining momentum in recent decades. Mixing perennials and shrubs from your region often gives you a water-wise, chemical free haven for butterflies and birds. Viburnum, milkweed, and switch-grass are doing just fine in my yard right now. The Durham County Cooperative Extension and the North Carolina Botanical Garden are excellent places to scribble down ideas and procure plant lists. They will also gladly give you the locations of local nurseries and garden supply shops specializing in native and drought resistant plants.

While I may grimace at the brown stalks of a few choice perennials in my side yard and the dying dogwood along the edge of a natural area, I am fortunate that I am not staring at a half acre of suffering vegetables or many acres of ruined livestock silage. To put this drought in perspective, I have to remember that a dependence on Mother Nature for your daily bread is not a historical footnote; it is an everyday trial for a lot of families in North Carolina. This year may cause many folks to give up their way of life as they are finally persuaded to sell the farm to a developer of a subdivision. Folks are moving into the countryside (or at least a marketable version of it), but unfortunately they aren’t taking back the wisdom of a country gardener. Instead they are too often striving for a large, expensive, and environmentally unsustainable lawn.

For my great -grandparents and their contemporaries, there was always next year in the garden. I share that sentiment with them but am also blessed that my dry sky is only affecting a hobby and not my family’s welfare. I can always go to the grocery store or a Farmers’ Market to buy my vegetables. I bet my grandmother’s mother would recommend the Farmers’ Market.