It's Gonna Be A Good Day

It's On.

Rain or shine. Slight chance, but looking good.

In the Winter of Monet

Enter a living canvas.

A Pop-Up Garden Tour

The Perfect Day is Coming

In The Winter Of Monet
Enter A Living Canvas

What: A Pop-Up Garden Tour
When: Saturday, February 24th, 1 to 6pm
Why: Because My Winter Garden Is Amazing

If you know how to get here, Come.
If you need more info,
Contact Christopher C. at Outsideclyde at gmail dot com.

Seriously, wear good walking shoes. Low rider cars should park up top along the scenic byway.
The best lighting on sunny days occurs after 4:20 when the garden is swept up in the mountain's shadow.

Come see the Under Garden of Winter before the Lush returns. It could be the most talked about garden event of the year.

Now back to Lent.

The West Asheville Garden Stroll

If you have never been to one, Go. Not only are there fourteen gardens on this year's stroll, you get to walk the endlessly fascinating and quirky neighborhoods of West Asheville for a close up look. Residential architecture from the last one hundred years can be found in some of the oddest layouts of streets and lots of any city I have ever been in.

The West Asheville Garden Stroll is this coming Saturday, September 10th. Kickoff at 10:30am at Vance Elementary School. Stroll is 11am to 4pm. Rain or Shine. Seriously. You should go. It's free and fun.

A Perfect Day

From almost 10am sharp until 5pm there was a perfectly spaced flow of visitors. There was a chance for them to say hello to people they already knew, to meet new faces and to experience the wild cultivated gardens pretty much on their own.

It was a surprise and a pleasure for me to meet a few of my more anonymous local blog readers

It was a beautifully cool morning with a hint of breeze. The hot held off until three. One brief shower slowed the last guest's venture into the gardens.

The view from above at the start grabbed their attention and lured them in.

I made sure they were hydrated and made most of them eat haupia. Refreshing was the general response.

While I spent my time visiting and orienting people to the layout of the gardens from the cozy cabin, I had a map, word came back from several folks that Bulbarella was out in her garden giving private tours. I saved her some haupia.

It was a perfect day.

What Have We Here

I may have been slightly confused when I woke up Sunday morning after the tour. There were no paths to mow, no weeds to pull. There was no where I needed to go until late afternoon and nothing that needed doing. What was I supposed to do?

I wandered aimlessly through the gardens to see how they fared - just fine, not a single dent or scratch - and watered a few of my new plants since it had not rained up here all week. Now what?

It's on those kind rare days that I am apt to wander into the deep forest to see what I might see. I saw things, a Showy Orchis I had never seen several feet outside the cages. Hmmm?

Then I wandered across this patch of lily looking things. I am going to guess this is the Speckled Wood Lily, Clintonia umbellulata.

I'll need to return with a shovel. I'll need some in the garden where they can be seen by more people. I may even need to move an orchid.

The gardens bloomed on, promising a much bigger show in another week to ten days that no one on the MG garden tour got to see. I'll see it.

Perhaps there will be others who see it. On Monday we had visitors from Austin, Vicki of Playin Outside and her husband Steven came to Asheville for the week because she hasn't stopped talking about it since her visit with the Garden Bloggers Fling in 2012. It's always nice when a friend comes to visit the gardens again.

On Thursday there will be another visitor, Janet Manning the director of horticulture for the Corneille Bryan Native Garden in Lake Junaluska. She was directed here by the one of the Master Gardeners. I look forward to this visit. It could prove interesting. I don't really know what she has been told about the wild cultivated gardens.

I am settling back in to my regular work routine. When I stroll the garden now I contemplate my next ruthless editing out of the New England Aster before it has a chance to bloom. That will involve some stompage so I am giving it a week or two for all those folks who said they wanted to come to get here while it is still show ready. That won't last long in the wild cultivated gardens.

Tour Day

There was a steady flow all day long.

But you can disperse a lot of people into the wild cultivated gardens and still have plenty elbow room. Most of them you won't even be able to see once they wander off.

My rough guess is that about 150 people made their way to the low spot high on a North Carolina mountain top. Three of them were blog readers of mine from Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida/part time NC. It was also interesting to meet many of my near neighbors from the side roads off the scenic byway. It was a most enjoyable group of visitors. The compliments flowed.

The Carolina Lupine got a lot of inquiries and there was some oohing an aahing over the Indian Pink. The shoulder high Yellow Flag Iris drew lots of questions. That bold foliage makes a statement even without any blooms. My glass bottle edging was also a big hit.

There were wild flowers sprinkled generously throughout.

I have helped plan and put on a number of garden tours. I have been on a number of garden tours. We have opened the gardens to smaller select groups a few times and had plenty of private visitors. This was my first official time as the garden owner on a real garden tour. Now I know what it really feels like from the other side and it feels fine.

I'm sure all my experience on the planning and touring side of this kind of event helped a great deal. For me it was a no stress event. I went about my regular business in the garden and let the Master Gardeners do all the real work of putting on the tour.

And the tall flower meadow is no where close to a peak bloom. August into mid-September is really the best time I said to many.

They came. They enjoyed. I think quite a few of them got an inkling of letting nature be the co-gardener.

Then it was over. The last visitors left. They were near neighbors from off the scenic byway and he was Hawaiian. Aloha.

Then the beasts came out from hiding. It was time for dinner.

Just Around The Barn

Did I mention the Posh Estate is going to be on the Haywood County Master Gardener Tour on June 21st? This is a tiny slice of an expansive garden covering several acres.

I may have let one of the native weed flowers get a little rambunctious.

That's the barn and a teeny bit of the barn gardens. You can see the whole thing on the garden tour.

The 2014 Haywood County Master Gardener Tour

Something will be blooming.

I've been getting visits to the blog on searches for the Haywood County Master Gardener Tour. I have blogged it in the past. That is how they end up at Outside Clyde. What people want to know I'm sure is when is this year's tour.

Here you go. This year's Haywood County Master Gardener Tour is on Saturday, June 21st, 9am to 4pm. Rain or Shine. Partly cloudy with a gentle breeze and a high of 75 would be my preferred conditions.

The tour begins at the NC Mountain Research Station at 589 Raccoon Rd in Waynesville. You can buy tickets there and then pick up directions to all the gardens on this year's tour. For more info call the NC Cooperative Extension at 828-456-3575.

There are five gardens on this year's tour, three extensive private gardens - two I am quite familiar with. Extensive is an apt description, possibly an understatement - a perennial garden maintained by church volunteers, and an elementary school teaching garden.

Something is bound to be blooming in one of those gardens.

The gardens are spread from one side of the county to the actual county line on the other. Between the extensive private gardens and the drive, this will be an all day event if you want to see them all.

It is not in the least bit unusual for a private guided tour of the Wild Cultivated Gardens to take up to two hours. That's just one garden on the tour, though it's actually a twofer with the side by side converging gardens of mother and son.

Something will be blooming. Next week I may have a better idea of what that might be.

This is the native wild flower Houstonia purpurea. It has quite a long bloom time over the summer and there is plenty of it in my half of the Wild Cultivated Gardens.

The Posh Estate is the other garden on the tour I know quite well. I do a bit of gardening there. If you want to see what excellent taste and design ideas combined with a healthy budget and a knowledgeable gardener can accomplish in a few short years than this garden must not be missed. I know there will be plenty of blooms in this garden.

You might even be a bit perplexed that the same gardener tends such dramatically different gardens as the Posh Estate and the Wild Cultivated Gardens.

The Black iris won't be blooming, but plenty other somethings will be in bloom.

So don't miss it. Saturday June 21st, the Haywood County Master Gardener Tour. See you here. You could end up at Outside Clyde in reality.

Is It Time To Panic

On our evening stroll today I saw all kinds of garden chores that need doing. Of course that is nothing new. Being on the Master Gardener tour in one month is new. These chores need to get done.

The two deutzias indeed froze to the ground. They are sprouting from the bottom and need to be cut down before the new growth has to fight its way through all the dead parts.

I found another froze to the ground rose and a dead looking patch of St. John's Wort. Those need to
go.

There may be a few weeds here and there. Paths need tending.

I looked at the calendar and the two weeks prior to the tour in which I will only be working here and at the Posh Estate. That's on the tour too. It has to be perfect.

I'm not sure I have given myself enough days in the wild cultivated gardens to prepare.

What to do? What to do?

From now until the tour, evening strolls are out. I will have to spend an hour after dinner each night working in the ridge top garden and beyond.

If I can pull that off it will amount to several extra days worth of work. That should do it.

We will be ready.

Something will be in bloom on the day of the tour. I'm not sure what.

I noticed a few other things on our evening stroll and a month from now they will all be done.

Look deep into the shiny ball. It doesn't matter. These are the wild cultivated gardens, a living example of gardeners with over sized appetites. All will be well. I will not fret or panic. Ohmm.

While She's Still Here

We had our first visit and tour of the gardens today with the leaders of our volunteer group for the upcoming Master Gardener Tour. The whole team will come back the second week of June.The idea is to orient themselves to the gardens so they will be better able to direct people and answer questions.

I can't talk and take pictures at the same time. The Yellow Lady's Slipper however demands to be photographed while she is still here. Like all else she has her moment, then it is time to move on.

The Garden Was Fetching

The hail storm the night before had been brief and merciful.
Blooms were plentiful.
The paths were clear.
There was no floppage.

The weather was delightful.
Mostly cloudy with dashes of sun and a brisk cool breeze.
It did not rain.

The turnout was pathetic.
It makes one wonder.

The timing must have been off.
But these things must be timed by the garden's clock not a human clock.

But the good thing was, compared to what I do most days, this was most relaxing.
My body was given a much needed rest.

And one of my most favorite visitors, always bearing gifts of living greenery, came to see the garden today that she has had a generous hand in helping to plant.

The new rustic benches on the Great Lawn felt their first foreign fanny.

The invasive Gooseneck Loosestrife always gets comments when it is in bloom.

The wild cultivated gardens were seen for the first time by a few new eyes.

On a day in a season when the weathers and the garden were in full cooperation for an abundant display.