Home in the Piedmont

A trip down the 'hill' (actually the Blue Ridge Escarpment) to celebrate an evolving garden (the Cherokee Worldview Garden) at the botanical garden where I work had a variety of extra pleasures.

First was seeing some of my friends, but it was also an opportunity to check on our garden here, and do a bit of tending.

Our landscape in the mountains is great, and we're so fortunate to have both, but it doesn't present the nice connection with the earth that the physical activity of gardening requires. (Plucking a stray nutsedge from a raised bed isn't much of an effort).

I love the satisfying feel of pulling up crabgrass rosettes (at least in moist soil) and tidying beds and hanging up garlic to dry. And in the process, I can muse about what to plant for a fall garden.

I harvested the last of the garlic beds, and amazingly, I think I'll have enough garlic to last through mid-spring (uh, and more than break even on my purchase of garlic to plant, too!)

The blueberries are ripening, with lots more to come, and there are LOTS of blackberries in the thicket that's resulted in the back from a transplanted cultivar!

But the native azalea next to the garage is a standout this year (I'm actually not sure which species it is; I need to check with my gardening companion who's still up in the mountains). It suffered through the drought years, but it's glorious right now.