Any North Carolina gardeners who move out West will surely miss their Zone 8 plants like this Hibiscus ‘Albert Behnke’.


I read a comment from fellow garden writer Carol O’Meara asking me what plants were in bloom when I was in Raleigh, N.C., last week.

My answer? Everything.

After my week of visiting gardens in and around Raleigh, I can safely say gardening in North Carolina is probably a lot more fun than gardening in my neck of the woods.

Everywhere I looked, the gardens were lush, green and blooming with flowers of every shape, size and color. There were many plants I didn’t recognize because I’ve never had the chance to grow them.

The sides of every road and highway are so dense with trees and dark green foliage that it’s almost claustrophobic for someone who’s used to wide open spaces and views that go on forever.

These Happy Gardeners welcome visitors to the North Carolina Botanical Gardens at Chapel Hill.


Even though I’m back from my travels to North Carolina, I wanted to share a bit more of my trip because I visited so many wonderful public and private gardens and saw so many plants I’d never seen before.

We had but a short time at the North Carolina Botanical Gardens, part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I only caught a glimpse of the the gardens’ new environmentally-sustainable visitor education center as the bus pulled into the parking lot.

It was then a mad dash to the gardens to see as much as possible in 40 minutes flat.

I’m afraid I didn’t get too far into the official collection of North Carolina native plants, because I was enjoying the herb garden too much.

The Herb Garden included large beds of culinary and medicinal herbs that were used to treat a number of common ailments, like chest diseases, infectious diseases, rheumatism and other external complaints.

Plantsman Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, N.C., has created a beautiful botanical display garden filled with rare plants and animals.

The early morning photo shoot, part of the Garden Writers Association Symposium, was the perfect way to start the day. Buses began arriving at the Plant Delights Nursery around 7:30 and we were treated to a lovely breakfast before we hit the trails.

Plant Delights Nursery is more than a place to purchase plants. It’s a five-acre display garden with more than 17,000 different plant specimens. It would be impossible to see them all, especially since the garden is always changing.

The gardens began simply on a flat suburban site, but it has grown to become a showcase for rare and unusual ornamental plants.

Of course I was drawn to the plants in the Southwest Garden that featured delicate cacti planted with large agave, but I was equally taken with the Alpine Garden and Woodland Garden, too.

A tour of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University led to a surprising find–Opuntia Compressa (Prickly Pear Cactus) is a North Carolina native.

Even though Raleigh’s heat and humidity made it feel like I was walking through mud, the Sarah P. Duke garden tour was a beautiful introduction to “the crown jewel of Duke University.”

I expected to see lush gardens, but I didn’t expect to see a familiar face. While walking through the native gardens, I saw something that I grow in my own front yard: a prickly pear cactus.

I had no idea that cacti grew in North Carolina. Unfortunately that’s true. This variety is one of the endangered species grown in the special Steve Church Endangered Species garden.

It’s not the heat, but the humidity that probably placed this native on the endangered list.

The Duke gardens sit on a 55-acre site that was once a debris-filled ravine. Planting began in 1934 with a donation from Sarah P. Duke.

You had to “tweet to meet” for Wednesday evening’s tweet up at Rose Cottage in Raleigh, N.C.

After a long day of travel to the annual Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh, it was a welcome change of pace to stroll through Raleigh’s historic district to Rose Cottage.

On the way to the GWA twibe tweet up, I passed the state capitol and a historic marker proclaiming that Andrew Johnson, U.S. President from 1865-69, was born in a kitchen only a mile from where I stood.

Rose Cottage is the home owned by Jim and Sharon Bright who opened their garden for the GWA twibe’s tweet up. The event was organized by Helen Yoest (@HelenYoest) and Elizabeth Licata (@GWI).

Proven Winners sponsored the get together and it was an enjoyable way to meet face-to-face with more than 40 personalities I knew only by their twitter tags.

You can fry it, bake it, or mix it with cheese, but shredded summer squash mixed with chocolate takes the cake.

The garden that got off to a super-slow start this year is making up for lost time.

Two summer squash plants (Cucurbita pepo), their leaves covered in powdery mildew, are producing more squash now than I could have imagined at the beginning of the season.

Instead of worrying about pollinating them by hand, I’m working hard at picking them while they’re still small, buttery-yellow and tender. Just like puppies, they’re easier to give away while they’re still young and cute.

In addition to sharing them with friends and neighbors, I’ve  sliced squash and baked it into delicious casseroles; shredded, mixed it with Parmesan cheese and fresh rosemary and fried into pancakes; tossed with olive oil and grilled; and cut into quarters for crudites.

I’ve also shredded a colander full, steam-blanched and packaged it for freezing.

Flowers are sure to fly during the frenzied Iron Fist Florist competition at the Colorado Fall Home Show on Saturday.

The Iron Fist Florist competition, sponsored by the Floral Association of the Rockies (FAR), is set for Saturday at 1:00 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.

This event isn’t for pansies.

Three professional florists will test their design skills against each other and the clock in a competition based on the popular Iron Chef tv show featured on the Food Network.

Spectators will enjoy watching each florist create a unique floral design using identical flowers, greenery and other materials. Three secret ingredients will be unveiled right before the competition begins.

Judges include 2 honest-to-goodness professional florists and 1 celebrity judge, Carol O’Meara. Carol is a gardening professional who writes for regional publications like Edible Front Range, the Denver Post and her own Gardening After Five blog.

The winner of last year’s giant pumpkin weigh off set a Colorado state record at 1,135 pounds and was grown by Joe Scherber of Wheat Ridge.

The Rocky Mountain Giant Vegetable Growers are hoping for a new state record when the results are in from the Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off set for Saturday, September 26.

The annual weigh-off, held at Jared’s Nursery & Garden Center in Littleton, is a fun event that’s free and open to the public.

Judging for the junior division starts at 10:00 a.m. with the adult division following at 11:00.

I recommend getting there early so you can see how these monsters are transported to the event. We’re talking pumpkins so big they need a forklift to get them into place.

It’s an all-around fun day with music, a pumpkin pie baking contest, Jared’s Galleria of Ghouls and a free straw maze and obstacle course. Food is available for purchase, too.

My Gulliver spremipomodoro (tomato press) made quick work of turning garden-fresh tomatoes into a silky-smooth sauce.

I spent Sunday following in the footsteps of the generations of hardy women who harvested their home-grown produce and preserved it to feed their families through the winter.

I thought about them as I pressed the button on my food processor and turned a large bowl of yellow summer squash into a larger bowl of shredded squash ready to be steam-blanched for freezing.

I also thought about them as I stood on my comfy Gel Pro Chef’s kitchen mat. We may be separated by time and space, yet we’re still connected by the garden and the kitchen.

In addition to the squash, I cleaned, cut and blanched green beans before carefully packing them into heavy-duty freezer bags.

Sunday was also the day I unveiled my new tomato press, a thoughtful birthday gift that’s waited months to be put to use. It was a gift of hope that one day in late summer I’d have a basket of red-ripe tomatoes ready for pressing.

The Weird Veggie and Funny Fruit photo contest showed off Mother Nature’s–and gardeners’–creativity. Here are two of my home-grown contributions as examples of what happens when vegetables go wild.

I was surprised and delighted to find “Sweet Cheeks” among the yellow ‘pair’ tomato pickin’s one day.

John composed the picture as a piece of art to capture its image forever.

“Rockaby Baby Squash” was also a pleasant surprise. I pulled back the large leaves of my summer squash and saw these twins just waiting to be held.