Latest News
Quilting With Flowers
At the heart of quilting is design. Selecting a pattern and the fabrics that will express it is my favorite part of creating a quilt, and at the Arboretum, I get to translate this art form into the garden. Designing flowers and foliage into quilt patterns involves a...
The Extinction Question: Memories of a Conservationist
Perhaps no word in the lexicon of conservation is more powerful than “extinction.” It evokes images of skies once darkened with the flight of unnumbered passenger pigeons, now empty; of a grainy film from 1933 of the last Tasmanian tiger pacing in a dusty exhibit in a...
Landscape Enhancements Can Easily Build Home Value
Landscaping your Western North Carolina home not only creates a pleasing presentation for you and your guests, it can also enhance the value of your home. According to a survey by Turf Magazine, landscaping enhances the perceived value of home between 5.5% and 11.4%....
Ask the Arboretum: Creating a Pollinator Haven at Home
At the height of summer, a healthy garden vibrates, hums, whistles, buzzes and flashes with color. Morning light reveals dewy spider webs stretched between tall grass, hummingbirds careening through the air and chattering testily at one another, caterpillars nearly...
Off the Beaten Path: Uncovering the History of the Arboretum’s Azalea Collection
Creating a garden is a work over time. It requires interest, drive, concentration, commitment, creativity and even a little luck. The Arboretum’s National Native Azalea Collection certainly embodies all of these traits. It is a dreamy place to wander off the beaten...
Ask the Arboretum: Re-potting Houseplants to Go Outdoors
If you are like us, you have probably been spending a lot more time around your houseplants in recent days, and you might have also noticed that those potted friends in your windowsill could use a little T.LC.. Spring is a great time to give your houseplants a refresh...
Ask the Arboretum: How to Start a Vegetable Garden
The great English gardener Gertrude Jekyll wrote, “A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches us to trust.” My maternal grandparents were great gardeners because they had to be. Their...
This Spring, Find Your Place of Escape
Spring: If you are like me, the mere whisper of the word is enough to make your ears perk up from across a room. Every year, from the time the first leaf drops in autumn, the wait until spring's first blooms seems interminable. But the seasons have a way of gently...
Springing Into a New Decade of Growth
Beginning today, Monday, March 2, 2020, the personal vehicle parking fee for The North Carolina Arboretum increases from $14 per car to $25. Rates for passenger vans, motorhomes and commercial buses will remain unchanged. The Arboretum’s board of directors made the...
The Winter Garden: An Interview With Clara Curtis
January and February are relatively quiet months in the garden. But after the hustle and bustle of the holidays, perhaps this is a gift—a moment to exhale, look around, take stock of what is going on around us and maybe even allow ourselves to dream a little. I...