The story below is an excerpt from our March/April 2018 issue. For the rest of this story and more like it subscribe today, log in to read our digital edition or download our FREE iOS app. Thank you!
With surprises ranging from a collection of bonsai trees to delicious lunch fare, the Asheville destination is pure pleasure.
“Yuck, I didn’t know that’s how they actually did that.”
Asheville’s North Carolina Arboretum has more than 10 miles of trails coursing through 434 acres, 65 of which are landscaped gardens. Laurie and I had plotted a circuitous route that let us wander through all of the gardens while walking on at least some portion of most of the pathways.
It was an interpretive plaque on the Carolina Mountain Trail describing how honey is made by bees regurgitating nectar collected from flowers that got Laurie to declare the idea kind of grossed her.
Grossness turned to amazement in the Bonsai Exhibition Garden. The trees here are not from some exotic foreign land, but are native species of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I pondered what care, patience and expertise it must take to create these masterpieces. Left to grow naturally, they would have been full-sized trees, but here they are miniatures of themselves, complete with tiny leaves, needles, cones, gnarled tree trunks and twisting branches.
Other gardens also featured plants indigenous to the region. The Stream Garden creates the effect of walking along a small creek in western North Carolina, the Holly Garden and National Native Azalea Collection exhibit the great variety of the two genera, and the Heritage Garden has plants used in traditional Southern Appalachian folk medicine or handicrafts. Interesting architecture, sculptures, and other artwork are placed throughout the gardens.
However, the bulk of the arboretum’s acreage has not been landscaped nor cultivated and it was here that Laurie and I felt most at home. The aptly named Natural Garden Trail led through a forest of normal-sized trees, with interpretive signs providing information about the various species. I learned that on many of my other woodlands walks I have been passing by a most useful item. After being roasted, the nuts of the Allegheny Chinkapin (some references say Chinquapin) are good substitutes for coffee or even chocolate.
The Carolina Mountain Trail wound along a hillside, giving our calf muscles a bit of exercise as we wandered through an ericaceous forest. (Oh, I just had to throw this word in here! I learned it along the trail and it refers to members of the heath family). The Bent Creek Trail, which passed a small four-foot waterfall, provided a chance to quietly contemplate our surroundings and thank those who had the forethought to protect, and create, such a wonderful place next to the city’s busy urban setting.
