While not an official part of the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Asheville, North Carolina, the garden of the White Gate Inn, just down the street from our hotel, was suggested as a must-see if we had any spare time. So one morning I got up early and walked a few blocks into a quiet neighborhood of bungalows to see it. Its charms were evident from the street, especially with French hollyhocks in bloom.

The gray-gravel parking area is wrapped by garden on two sides, helping to blend it into the scene.

Verbena bonariensis was flowering.

Airy bronze fennel and felt-leaved mullein made a pretty combo.

But the foliage stars were the blue spruce pictured in the top photo and this purple Japanese maple, against which these yellow flower spires absolutely popped. Christopher has ID’d the yellow flower as Carolina or redneck lupine (Thermopsis caroliniana).

A closer look

Dripping with frosted blue berries, this Oregon grape holly (Mahonia aquifolium) was a traffic-stopper along the sidewalk.

What a handsome shrub!

With clusters of purple flowers held aloft on airy stems, Verbena bonariensis makes everything around it look prettier.

Blue spruce and more of those sweet French hollyhocks (Malva sylvestris ‘Zebrina’)

A narrow side path beckoned through a stand of bamboo, inside which two Adirondacks offered a secret hideaway. I was tempted to explore the back garden, but it was so early and the place so quiet that I felt as if I would be intruding, so I didn’t. Later, when I saw photos from the other bloggers who stopped by and did visit the back garden, I regretted my hesitancy. If you go, do take the path not taken.

And that concludes my posts about the 5th annual Garden Bloggers Fling. Here’s a group shot, taken after our big dinner on Saturday evening, just before the blogging discussion that followed. (Unfortunately, not everyone was able to stick around after dinner, and the photo was an impromptu affair—I wanted a group shot and asked a helper to take our picture—so at least 20 attendees missed the photo op.) There were approximately 84 bloggers at this year’s Fling, and what a great group it was. Meeting new attendees, renewing old friendships, touring beautiful gardens, and sharing meals together—the Asheville Fling was a big success. My thanks to the hard-working volunteer hosts who worked for months to create this fun event for us: Christopher, Frances, Helen Yoest, Lisa Wagner, Nan Chase, Rebecca Reed, and Ana Calderin. You are awesome! Thank you!

For a look back at the North Carolina Arboretum and Amy Stewart’s Wicked Plants exhibit, click here.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, one of our stops during the recent Garden Bloggers Fling, offers not only formal gardens, naturalistic gardens, a Professional Landscape Garden, and a bonsai exhibit, to name a few, but miles of trails on hilly terrain and framed views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I strolled through the gardens and came upon this finger-like sculpture. Recognize it? It’s the image from the Asheville Fling banner. The sculpture, by Martin Webster, is called A Hedge Against Extinction.

Hedges there were aplenty, as well as iconic trees, as befits an arboretum.

A beautifully contorted Japanese maple

Iris were in bloom…

…as well as lavender.

I was smitten by these white flowers with pale, freckled faces.

Does anyone know the name? Update: Agrostemma githago ‘Ocean Pearls.’ My thanks to Kaveh for the ID.

This was a surprise: culvert pipe planters, like the ones I’ve got in my own garden. I never expected to see funky, construction-material reuse at a botanic garden. But then again, this is Asheville, where recycled materials adorn the local gardens. These do seem a bit underplanted, however.

My favorite part of our visit was the chance to explore “Wicked Plants: The Exhibit”, a macabre display based on author Amy Stewart‘s Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities.

The exhibit is set up to resemble a decrepit, eerie house, with sinister portraits on the walls, peeling wallpaper, faded Victorian furniture—the works. It was convincingly constructed.

As you explore the various rooms, you can handle the props, like the place settings at this table, which contain questions and clues about killer plants. In one room a corpse (fake, of course) actually lies sprawled on a table, and you soon realize you’re trying to solve a mysterious death by examining the evidence in the room—personal letters, framed newspaper clippings on the walls, and “old” books lying on the tables—to determine what killed her. (Hint: it’s plant related.)

I found it marvelously engaging, satisfyingly creepy, and even educational. The exhibit remains at the North Carolina Arboretum until September 3, and then it will begin touring the country. If you get a chance, go see it. And take the kids—they’ll love the eeriness and hands-on nature of the exhibit.

For a look back at the Biltmore House gardens, click here. Next up, my final post from the Asheville Fling: A stroll through the White Gate Inn’s cottage-style garden.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The “big” garden visit on the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Asheville, North Carolina, was, of course, the Biltmore House gardens. I took a lot of photos of the gardens almost exactly a year ago, on a less-crowded and less-sunny morning (links at the end of this post), so I didn’t go photo-crazy this time. Instead I just walked around and took in the views. This image ended up being my favorite. I’m surprised they even allow dogs in the garden, but we saw a few, including this big boy lounging with his master in the shade of the wisteria arbor.

Castle in the sky—the House itself was not on our tour, although tickets were available to anyone who made time before or after the tour to go see it.

The wisteria arbor provided welcome shade on this hot afternoon.

Classical adornment…

…and natural beauty—the Vanderbilts had it all when they built their summer home here.

A few dogwoods were in bloom.

And the formal ponds in the Italian garden were revving up for summer glory.

The lotus weren’t blooming yet—too early…

…but an island in the pond offered the surprising sight of a banana tree growing out there, surrounded by Japanese iris.

I’m declaring rose campion (Lychnis coronaria) to be the Asheville Fling’s signature plant. I saw it everywhere we went. Here a hot-pink and a white variety are paired with bronze canna and tall verbena.

Oval windows in the grape arbor, which leads from the upper gardens to the conservatory garden, look out on the formally planted Walled Garden.

Here we bloggers were treated to champagne in the garden. I’d have felt like Lady Vanderbilt herself, if only I’d been wearing a long, sweeping dress and big-brimmed hat. That’s Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden enjoying a glass too.

Anneliese Valdes of CobraHead’s blog and Christa Hanson of Growing a Greener World TV—all sweetness and light

Moments later they are in full photo-bomber mode. Which is the truer portrait? I’m not saying.

For a look back at the recycled-art garden of Christopher Mello, click here. Next up: A sampling from the North Carolina Arboretum and Amy Stewart’s macabre and wonderful Wicked Plants exhibit.

And if you’d like to see more of the Biltmore House gardens, I wrote four posts about it last summer. You’ll find pics of Biltmore’s formal gardens, the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed shrub garden, a gorgeous limelight-colored perennial border, and Biltmore’s glass house and conservatory garden.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.