The North Carolina Botanical Garden, Part II

Spring Beauty (Claytonia)

I first got interested in gardening with native plants about 20 years ago, when we lived in Chapel Hill and my husband was in graduate school. We lived only a few miles from the Botanical Garden and I remember the displays of Rudbeckia fulgida, Joe Pye Weed and summer phlox. Then we moved to Pennsylvania for three years, where there was not as many flowering trees as we have here in central NC, but the local parks had astounding numbers of wildflowers. Like the mountains in NC, the ground in western PA doesn't dry out in summer like it does in the piedmont and coastal plain of NC. In PA we saw large colonies of May apple, Trillium, bloodroot, Blue-Eyed Mary, Geranium, yellow violets and Virginia bluebells in the spring, and showy milkweed, blue vervain, Monarda, and I don't know how many kinds of sunflowers and asters in the spring and fall. Then we moved back to NC and to our farm, and with it being "heavy land" as the locals say, we have a lot of wildflowers here too, many of which I've transplanted into the garden. Natives aren't the only plants I grow in the garden, but they have a special place.

Below are pictures from the Garden that I took last April.

20 years ago I didn't know that hothouse Geraniums weren't really geraniums at all, or that
there were native Geraniums. Just personal preference but I much prefer Geraniums to Pelargoniums.

These charming bells belong to American bladdernut. Dirr is rather
dismissive of it in his Manual but it's very attractive in April.

The Paul Green Cabin, where the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author of The Lost Colony did much of his work. This cabin was moved from its original location to the Garden in 1991. The flowering tree in the foreground is red buckeye (Aesculus pavia).

This sweet betsy bush (Calycanthus florida glauca) is easily 15 feet high. It has the sweet fruity
fragrance that sweet betsy is famous for, and when it's in full bloom its perfume carries a good 50 feet.

Trillium leaves and newly emerged fern

A spread of scorpionweed between the Totten Center and the Herb Garden. The orange-
flowering shrub to the left in the background is Florida azalea (Rhododendron austrinum).

I love that azalea, even as it leans out from the shade of a possamhaw (Ilex decidua). With its spectacular blend of colors, it looks like Flame Azalea (Rhododendron calendulaceum), but it is very sweetly fragrant.

Birdsfoot Violet, growing in the Coastal Plain section. Garden staff
does controlled burns of this section of the Garden every few years.

We have a lot of green and parsley leaf hawthorns growing on our place, but none
quite have the character of this blueberry hawthorn (Crataegus brachyacantha).

The lovely and fragrant coast azalea (R. atlanticum). The scent
is a lot like R. austrinium, but more cotton candy and less spice.

Pinxterflower or piedmont azalea

White dwarf crested iris

Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium reptans)

Southern wood fern

Arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum)

Blooming Friday: First Breath of Spring

The weather the past few days has been glorious -- warm, sunny and dry. The First Breath
of Spring has recovered from the deep freeze and now is covered with open flowers.

Honeybees too. They were out in force.

Thanks to Katarina at roses and stuff for hosting Blooming Friday.

The NC Botanical Garden, or Another Favorite Garden Center

My second favorite local garden center, while not a commercial venture, has still served as a source for many plants in my garden. The North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill has intensively cultivated display gardens as well as trails through oak-hickory forest that has native azaleas, Rhododendron, mapleleaf viburnum, Hepatica, spring beauty... In exchange for membership, the Garden sends out a set of 8 seed packets in the mail (you get to choose among 50 species), and there are almost always plants for sale.

I took these pictures in Chapel Hill last April. This
magnificent trumpet honeysuckle was already in full bloom.

The blue Virginia bluebells are my favorite, but I like these snow white bluebells too.
The combination of the fresh slightly bluish leaves and the snow white flowers is very lovely.

Fern-leaf scorpion-weed (Phacelia bipinnatifida) carpets the mountains section of the Garden. I have tried to get this lovely reseeding biennial started in my garden but have not yet succeeded. It superficially resembles Jacob's ladder (Polemonium reptans) but the flowers are more lavender/ purple.

The first time I've seen vernal iris (Iris verna). I have read that vernal iris have the fragrance of violets; since I do not have any English violets in the garden, I don't know what violets smell like anyway, but I could not detect any fragrance at all. However, the colors are so vibrant and beautiful the iris is well worth growing anyway, in addition to I. cristata.

Many more pictures to follow... :)