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Lifelong Landscape Design: Demo Cover for Garden Writers Debut

The Search for a Expressive Cover

High Green, Nancy and Holcombe Greens’s lovely garden in Cashiers, NC,  is the current poster child for Lifelong Landscape Design: Environments for Health and Longevity, due for release in August 2012 by Gibbs Smith Publishers.

The garden has everything…  an atmospheric waterfall, place to sit, herbs between the cracks, gentle stairs, flat surface on which to walk and beautiful plantings. The demo cover is evolving, so stay tuned!

Mary Palmer leaves this week for Garden Writers of America Annual Meeting in Indianapolis to debut the upcoming book. Over 650 Garden Writers vie for the opportunity to share contacts, hear fabulous & inspirational lectures and visit good material to write about…gardens!  www.gardenwriters.org/

Pioneer Garden at Cashiers Designer Showhouse

Cashiers Pioneer Garden

Bring your Pickin’ Basket to the The Pioneer Garden

Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans  live up to their name! Planted in early June, they climbed the beanstalks and set 8″ pods by mid August. The kale, swiss chard, garlic chives and other useful herbs and vegetables survived attacks by crows and rabbits to flourish in the millstone garden. The birdhouse gourd tree makes a quaint statement…no occupants yet!

Mary Palmer Dargan, asla put together antibellum gypsy kettles as planters, and antique gardening tools plus a collection of rustic furniture. Hugh Dargan suggested grasses planted in the caldron kettle to mimic smoke.

The Cashiers Designer Showhouse benefits Cashiers Historical Society and is a “must visit” for both home and garden. Reflections, the historic log cabin home overlooks a scenic lake and reached along an atmospheric, mountain road. It is open until Sept 4.

For more information contact http://www.cashiershistoricalsociety.org/ or call 828-743-7710

Joy Garden Tour showcases two Dargan Gardens!

The Joy Garden Tour  July 14-16 benefits the support of The Cashiers Village Green with a beautifully executed garden tour to exclusive mountain homes and gardens. This biannual event raises the majority of the funds for maintenance for the 12.5 acre site in the heart of little ole’ unincorporated Cashiers, NC.

Gardens in the Chattooga Club and Wade Hampton Golf Club designed by Mary Palmer Dargan are special stops along the tour of a handful of beautiful gardens. The Akitt garden, Timberline, is a spectacular series of interconnected garden terraces situated on a west facing slope. Complete with rare shrubs, flowering hydrangeas and specialty cornus, there is also a snail’s trail path and topiary deer in a buckberry forest. The Valenta garden which faces north and west toward Chimney Top mountain, is likewise situated on a series of terraces (see pathway). The garden features a collection of handcrafted bird’s houses by Walt Cottingham, a fantastic waterfall by Bob Dews and planting installation by Dustin Watson of Scotly’s Yard Nursery.

A market of hand selected garden fares opens at the gala on Thursday, July 14 and continues till Saturday July 16. Mary Palmer will do booksignings each day. http://www.villagegreencashiersnc.com/fundraisers/joy_garden_tour.htm

Mountains in Bloom Highlands NC features Dargan Garden

Mountains in Bloom is a REAL flower show, with bonus garden tour and opening cocktail party. Entries are accepted on July 7 from 8 am till noon, then the judging begins on garden photography, horticulture and floral design.

Don’t be afraid to enter! It is free and painless. The gala opening is 6-8 pm July 7 at the Bascom’s fabulous gallery. Tours begin on friday to Highlands finest. Cecile McCaull, the flower show co-chair, graciously shares her wonderful log home garden with visitors. Mary Palmer designed the arched backdrop and tweaked several areas of this large, mature garden ; Cecile added the mirror!  for tickets

www.mountainsinbloom.com or 828-787-2896

 

Cashiers Decorator Show House features Pioneer Garden at Reflections

Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans, Striped Corn and Heirloom Squash varieties were planted to the pioneer garden at Reflections, in Cashiers, NC this week.
The Cashiers Decorator show house, a project of Cashiers Historical Society to benefit local charities, opens August 17.
Reflections is a magnificent home made from three cabins.
What better choice for a garden next to a cabin? Pioneer gardens are for survival and feature plants for sustenance, herbal cures and household needs.  Other plants in the garden include calendula, used as an antiseptic and dye plant, heirloom varieties of carrots and hyacinth beans climbing broom corn for summer color. The garden also features pre civil war, cast iron “gypsy”kettles as planters and antique gardening tools.
The show house garden crop is protected from rabbits and crows by netting.  The plants were started 3 weeks ago in pots to protect them from frost. Prior to planting at Reflections, crows attacked and destroyed most the baby plants incubating at Highcote, the Dargan home in High Hampton, Cashiers, NC. Since hope springs eternal in pioneer gardens, more seed was planted!
The garden is located in an existing boxwood garden with millstone. Mary Palmer Dargan, author and landscape architect, is the designer, and hopes for good growth this summer.