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August 18th, 2010
 Andy Peters Quick Draw Art The Village Green Board invited everyone to join in the fun this weekend by creating an event that pleased both seasonal and permanent residents. Whole families came with baby carriages and bicycles, grandparents with walkers, disinterested teenagers who soon became animated and honeymooners who cooed. The entire village of Cashiers visited the Village Green and christened The Village Commons (former Summit Charter School site).
The buzz was on music and painting, sculpture and being in nature. Pathways installed this spring were positively bursting at the seams with pedestrians traveling from one end of the Green to the other, and then further into the community. Thanks to the Cashiers Village Council’s Pathways project with a grant from the Gralnick Foundation, who needs parking when linkages like these exist? The pathways span a habitat diversity of roads and wetlands to connect the Post Office, Tommy’s and Zoller’s. Come walk them and be healthy.
The open Quick Draw event on Saturday encouraged me to set up an easel in the new meadow in the heart of the green. Here, three stone monoliths temporarily reside. Thinking that a brim hat and sunglasses would offer an invisibility shield, I sat and drew the scene. Nearby, a famous Plein Air artist did a stunning pastel of dead trees. We listened to song sparrows warbling and worked on our paintings until the three hour deadline. Cashiers residents rambled by and watched us draw ( a humbling experience!) . They said nice things about the weather and how wonderful the park is to share on an outing with family and friends. It was very touching.
Music from drumming and jazz filled the air, Coach laid out a memorable high country boil and children had faces painted in the new Harmony Tower. Families went on scavanger hunts on the Green. Most importantly, the Plein Air art commemorating Cashiers was selling like hot cakes. Has there ever been a public event with such spirit and interconnectivity?
As inaugural event chair of the 2010 Arts on the Green Festival, I want to thank the community and the marvelous, hardworking and creative Village Green Board Arts Committee for supporting this embryonic festival. Trish Warriner and Karen Weihs co-chaired the Plein Air event and Wesley Wofford chaired the temporary sculpture installation. Jochen Lucke, VG President helped in innumerable ways. They deserve a hearty round of applause.
The Village Green is YOUR Green and supported only by your donations. We receive no federal, county or state support. The Village Green is here for you as a place to enjoy nature, concerts, lectures, birthday parties and festivals. www.villagegreencashiersnc.com 828-743-3434. Please become a Greenie, a member of the Village Green.
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July 5th, 2010
Ahh, Seattle, speaking of being entertained in style! The Northwest Perennial Alliance Hardy Pant Study Weekend was an information packed blast June 12-15. http://www.northwestperennialalliance.org/ As a measure of its delights, the conference annually sells out in mid- March. One of my plant breeding heros, Adrian Bloom, of England’s Blooms of Bressingham, pointed out that while hundreds of new cultivars are released each year, breaking into the market with a new plant is quite difficult and horribly expensive. I personally trial several of their achillleas & silenes. Other speakers included ME (!), Ros Creasy, Joe Eck, Wayne Winterrowd, Charles Price, Glenn Withey, Nicholas Staddon, Steve Lorton, and weekend moderator Riz Reyes. Learn more about our speaker is a great link to these talented lecturers. The tours, hosted by Tina Dixon and Paul Stredwick, plant market, workshops and parties brought out more than 450 people to the conference. I sold lots of Timeless Landscape Design: The Four Part Master Plan books!
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June 30th, 2010
Fly fishing on the Cherokee Reservation in NC is a beautiful experience. Friends fro m SC, GA & LA joined up for a day of casting and reeling. We’re training for a trip to Yosemite in July. I used Palmers, caterpillars, little bitty things (obviously I’m a novice!), imperial beadheads…sadly, no luck on my end. However, Hugh caught 4 rainbow trout. While standing and musing, a hearty member of Cherokee’s tribal river keepers walked up and dumped a large container of 12″ rainbows right by my side. Of course, the line tangled in my enthusiasm…ah, the ones that got away! I’m impressed with the waters of the upper Oconoluftee, the cleanliness of the public pull-offs (they have river keepers picking up trash), $7 a day pass is not expensive and no NC license needed since you are in Cherokee waters.
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June 30th, 2010
Seattle’s enormous perennial and decorative shrub collections stun me each time I visit gardens there. My host was Nita Jo Rountree, who has an incredible perennial collection of the very most choice plants. What a connoisseur! As a momento, I purchased a stunning dogwood, Cornus kousa ‘Akatsuki‘, with leaves clearly banded in brilliant white and purple fall color from  Gossler Farms Nursery. I’m a sucker for variegated dogwoods. Standing 4 feet high in its bucket, once removed, I wrapped it in recycled host-basket cellophane, made it into a circle and stuffed it into my diminuitive Orvis flyfishing roll-aboard. It is now in the ground in Cashiers, NC at our office grounds, “The Barn on Blindside”, happy as a lark, not having missed a beat. Other finds were a Uvularia sessilifolia ‘Albostriata’ (a gentle infiltrator) from Far Resches Farm Nursery, Aconitum ‘Bressingham Spire’ (a july-aug bloomer 3′ tall compact), annual Salvia patiens (gentian sage) with hugh blue flowers, Symphytum x uplandicum ‘Axminster Gold’ (variegated comfrey best for semi-shade to preserve foliage color), Penstemon ‘lost tagicum’ (my newest mystery plant!).
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June 3rd, 2010
Herb Society of Nashville’s annual meeting featured new and old friends from over the US! Mary Palmer lectured on Timeless Landscape Design to a packed and happy audience of 350 at the Vanderbiilt Plaza Hotel. A native of Nashville (6th generation), Mp became a member of the Herb Society while in high school, or at least went to the meetings at a very tender age! Now a Rosemary Circle member (25 yrs membership) for over a decade, MP received her first scholarship from the HSA while a botanist at Cheek Botanical Gardens in Nashville in 1976.
This launched her career as a landscape architect when she attended Louisiana State University and began her thesis 2 years later on “The Early English Kitchen Garden: 800-1800 AD”, pub 1981. Still in print, the little blue book sold out as did Timeless Landscape Design. (see image of early distillery in medieval kitchen garden)
The introducer, HSA president held up the two volumes to the crowd and said ..” These two books describe Mary Palmer Dargan’s evolution as a writer, botanist and landscape architect for over three decades”. While at the meeting, MP purchased a first edition of Bernard M’ Mahon’s The American Gardener’s Calender, 1806, Philadelphia, the first book on gardening published in America and an influential text in her research. Bookseller, Kevin T. Ransom of Amherst, NY had a fantastic display and Mp found a copy of the Picayune Creole Cookbook, New Orleans 6th ed, 1901-1922 with original painted cover.
The conference held
Needless to say, Mp blew all her book sales proceeds on this one book! What a way to remember a conference!!
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February 16th, 2010
 Lectures to garden clubs are some of my favorite venues! Today, it is the Carolina Foothills GC, a member of Garden Club of America located in Greenville, SC. I love this group. It made the Reedy River project come together thru their active community work and it was awarded many prizes including best by America Society of Landscape Architects. I’m both a GCA member and in ASLA, so very proud of them. We’ll be talking about Lifelong Landscape Design tomorrow, how does it work , what do you do to plan WAYYYY ahead for your lifelong home. You are probably already in it if you are aged 61. Many valuable tips from organization of parts, access, easy gardening, plants and healing garden design.
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February 16th, 2010
 Dargan Landscape Architects exhibit features hyacinths and flair tulips in full glory. The book drawing on Saturday promises a “Timeless” treasure…more to come as the flower show entries are judged. Please come visit the Southeastern Flower Show Feb 4-6 (closes Sat at 8pm).
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February 5th, 2010
Win a “Timeless” treasure!
One of our books will be given away at 6pm on Saturday at the SE Flower Show at the Cobb Galleria! We’ll also give 6 runners-up their pick of the litter of Pink Pearl hyacinths, Scilla, Flair tulips and many, many more.
Hugh does a book signing at Eagle Eye Bookstore at noon.
The show features beautiful flowering plants, large landscape exhibits, educational and garden design features and a Marketplace. Come see us!
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February 3rd, 2010
 Birthing this baby is in full force today. Much after a trial run at the GA Home Show, but one ton of grit was a bear of a challenge to unload into a swirling dervish of a marketplace! The Southeastern Flower Show opens tomorrow (Thurs, Feb 4 – Sat at 8pm) and is located at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta.
Hugh and I will have book signings at Eagle Eye and and autographed books are also available at our beautiful display. Scilla, hyacinths ‘Delft Blue, Pink Pearl & Top Hit’, muscari, dutch iris, tulip ‘Flair’ and more were forced in our mountain retreat specially for this event. Come put in your name for a free book in the drawing on Saturday and come to the “Meet up with Mary Palmer & Hugh” where we’ll give away 5 plants.
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January 24th, 2010
 The Mid-South Horticultural Short Courses, sponsored by The Virginia Horticultural Foundation, started today with a wiz-bang demonstration of potions and liqueurs. I tested samples of 8 different flavors from lemoncello to kahlua to creme-de-minthe, the real thing. Fabulous flavors with a kick; what a perk to a lecturer.
Tomorrow, I test a new teaching method of Raw, Built and Living Overlays to an over sold audience of 82 people. Whew. Will report back on how many different solutions can be produced for a mountain, courtyard or urban landscape, as students have choices of projects. The audience consists of homeowners, horticulturists, landscape designers and allies professions. All very jovial people, maybe I should serve a potion or liqueur at the end of the 6 hr session?
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