Gardens by Kelly Productions

Amid rain and the gentle clamor of thunder, I sojourned today with fellow hortiholics Dan Heims, Bob Pries, and Kate Bryant across the great state of North Carolina.  In the area for the annual Garden Writers Association symposium (which I speak at on Friday), my cohorts and I decided to take advantage of the bounteous, local hort-resources.  We gathered at Bob’s house in Roxboro last evening making plans for the three days ahead.  We’ve got packed schedules and plan to die, filled with chlorophyll when we finish!

Day 1 of actual travels in North Carolina began this morning in Bob’s garden.  Carved out in the woods, Bob and wife Rose Mary’s new home will soon be surrounded by as-yet-unplanted nursery containers of choice shrubs, alpines, perennials, and trees.  Growing feet from their front door, seedlings of Helianthus angustifolius cheerfully greeted us this morning as we left.  My friend Troy from Nashville wrote about late summer sunflowers on his blog a few weeks back.  Check it out!

We arrived in Asheville about 12:30, four hours after leaving Bob’s house.  We visited the North Carolina State University Mountain Horticultural Crops Experiment Station this afternoon.  Woody plant breeder and guru Tom Ranney, of forthcoming Hydrangea arborescens ‘Spirit’  fame, was our gracious host.  This new pink-flowered “Annabelle” type hydrangea must grow in your garden.  Not to worry either, darker and more intense colors are forthcoming as well!

Much of the material at the experiment station is of proprietary value so photos shouldn’t in good faith be published.  I’ve shared a few shots below though of legitimate stuff that I won’t get in trouble for posting!  Tom and his crew focus on many of our favorite woodies including dogwoods, grape hollies (Mahonia), as well as a fascinating host of bigeneric hybrids (crosses between two different genera of plants) between Franklinia altamaha (the now extinct tree that bears the name of US forefather Benjamin Franklin), Schima argentea, and Gordonia lasiantha.  These incredibly unique small trees warrant attention by southern gardeners in particular, though hardiness remains in the realm of possibility with some further testing.  He’s also evaluating a good many triploid Miscanthus, something desperately sought by gardeners tired of their rampant tendencies.

We ended the evening at a very fine Mexican and Californian-themed cuisine restaurant called Limones.  Very nice food and exceptional company.  More of my jabby little jottings from the road throughout the week.

All images copyright Kelly D. Norris, 2009.

Autumnal nights come fast. Racing the setting sun, I sped with trowel and bucket in tow around the garden, quickly tucking in the last of my weekend purchases and watering them. Bats buzz bye, darting past my head as they bypass the security light. Though I love fall, I can’t help scorn the last of the light that flickers beyond the horizon shortening the hours I can spend in my garden. It’s an assured consequence of my second favorite season.

Though I disapprove of shortening days, I grimace more when I hear fellow gardeners decry the hardness and dryness of fall. “Oh the garden looks tough,” they moan, suggesting that fall marks an end.  While it’s logical to regard fall as bold and vibrant ending to a well-sung concert, I relish its span of time as much as I did the measures and bars before it.  The end is the best part, right?  So in defiance, I go shopping every fall in search of the best divas capable of hanging on through overture after overture to appear only in a gallant end scene.

This fall I’ve got a few stops planned.  First, I made my way to the coolest plant haven in Iowa, The Perennial Flower Farm of Ionia.  Owners Steve and Caroline Bertrand relish the closing acts too, propagating numerous clones of bush clematis (Clematis heracleifolia), the adorable yellow waxy bells (Kirengeshoma palmata), and giant bugbane (Actaea simplex ‘Pritchard’s Giant’).  I bought some of each, even though I already own several bush clematis and yellow waxy bells.  I’m insatiable, what can I say?  The giant bugbane has been a lust plant for me for years, even though I’ve had ample opportunity to buy one.  Plant geeks have priorities though, and somehow I kept passing up this skyscraping tall boy in favor of something else.  Yesterday, however, was its day.  Even though my photo fails to do the plant justice, imagine the scent with me for a moment.  Bawdy and lusty, bees and all manner of winged pollinators swarmed six-foot tall flower stalks despite my prodding lens and investigative eyes.

My next stop lies 1,200 miles from my fair garden home.  Next Sunday I embark with fellow plant geeks Dan Heims, Kate Bryant, and Bob Pries on a whirlwind tour of North Carolina’s finest, all before the annual Garden Writers Association (GWA) convention in Raleigh.  I’ll post photos and stories of our trek as I do every year from GWA.

In the flurry of fall, I look to my garden for stability, and even though I’ll miss the entirety of the ending this season, I’ll know it’s nothing but the best.

Check out more photos from my annual trip to The Perennial Flower Farm below:

Listed in order of appearance: Giant bugbane (Actaea simplex ‘Pritchard’s Giant’), Clematis viticella (seed wild collected in Poland), Sanguisorba tenuifolia, and a very petite-flowered clone of the unfortunately weedy Clematis tangutica.