Sylva’s carnivorous plant man: After nearly 30 years and thousands of plants, carnivorous plants still fascinate

When it comes to carnivorous plants, Darwin Thomas knows what he’s talking about. It doesn’t take much to get him started on a fact-filled tangent about the plants’ prey preferences, proper care and feeding, or histories. But Thomas, a heating and air technician by trade, didn’t learn any of it by sitting in a class somewhere. 

“I read a lot of books, and just talking to people too,” Thomas said. “I’ve not had any education at all in anything to do with this. I just learned over the years. And after 28 years, I think I’ve learned how to grow them.”

Island of green: Exhibit commemorates 50 years of community-driven landscape at HCC

It’s a sunny day at Haywood Community College, light sparkling from the campus’s landmark mill pond and shining through the leaves still clinging to the archway of willow oaks lining the school’s entrance drive. The campus lawn is covered with leaves fallen from the towering white oaks dominating it, academic buildings nestled naturally into the folds of the landscape. 

In many ways, it looks more like a park than a campus, and that’s by design — the design of Doan Ogden, that is. Ogden, a nationally known landscape architect, designed gardens and landscapes throughout Western North Carolina after moving to teach at Warren Wilson College, and the grounds of HCC are among his accomplishments.

Speaking for the trees: Waynesville launches arboretum effort

As manager of Waynesville’s urban forest, it’s safe to say that Jonathan Yates likes trees. So when Diane Kornse of the Mountain View Garden Club approached him last fall to ask if the town had any project in the wings that the club could help tackle, Yates was ready with an answer. 

“I said, ‘Actually, I do have an idea I’ve had for years, but it would really require something like a garden club to make it happen,’” Yates recounted.

Franklin property proposals focus on outdoors, gardening

fr whitmireThe Franklin Board of Aldermen has yet to agree on what it should do with a 13-acre tract it owns just off East Main Street, but two proposals from the public are leaning toward utilizing the green space for public recreational purposes.

Pollinate, propagate, cultivate: 2016 garden tour to show off the best beds in Haywood

out frWhen Sarah Scott first started work at Haywood County Cooperative Extension in February 2015, planning for the 2016 Haywood County Garden Tour was one of the first items to come across her desk. Untold hours of preparation later, the horticulture extension agent and horde of volunteers working with her are days away from showing hundreds of people the best of Haywood’s gardens.

“Haywood County has some very talented gardeners and some very beautiful gardens,” Scott said. “I enjoyed going out and seeing so many of them. It was terrible to have to choose only a few.”

Stories, salad and wildflowers: Plants a passion for Bigelow

out frAdam Bigelow bears down on the gas pedal of his biodiesel-fueled Jetta, urging it up the steep contours of the Blue Ridge Parkway in search of higher ground. It’s a gardener’s car, through-and-through, the dash covered with dried plant parts, the floorboards papered with garden-related fliers and catalogues. 

The only thing that’s missing is a live plant, and even that’s not too far-flung a reality. It wasn’t that long ago, Bigelow recalls, that he looked down from his seat to see a little pea plant growing up, apparently having received just the right amount of water from some mysterious source to take root in the car.

Filling the plate: Haywood group feeds the hungry with harvest leftovers

out frA half-hour into the morning, Carol Larson has the gleaning operation smoothly underway at Skipper Russell’s farm in Bethel. A trio of tarps, topped with cardboard boxes neatly arranged in rows, sits on the grassy buffer between field and road. Beyond the tarps stretch rows — long, long rows — of cucumber plants.

Sowing the seed of learning: Elementary school garden serves as a conduit for science and life lessons alike

out fr2Clad in his signature overalls, Joe Smiley leaned on his rake, taking in the tranquil late-summer scene: pie-pans strung among the corn stalks twisted in the breeze, daisies dipped ever so slightly under the weight of a welcome bee, a wheelbarrow gently rumbled its way down the garden path.

Conference digs toward the root of hunger in WNC

fr gleaningSharing food can be a simple thing. Like passing a bag of trail mix to the hiking buddy who forgot to pack lunch, or ladling an extra bowl of chili for the neighbor who stopped by at dinnertime.

From a mustard seed: Churches get gardening to fight hometown hunger

coverJune Johnson’s foray into the world of gardening began in the dead of winter. A sunny January day last year inspired her to venture outside, and her walk brought her to the path behind Maggie Valley United Methodist Church and the grassy lawn surrounding it. The sight made her pause.

SEE ALSO: Conference digs toward the root of hunger in WNC 

“Having grown up around farming, I thought, ‘Why don’t they have a church garden?’ and roamed into the back of the church,” recalled Johnson, a retired teacher and native of Haywood County.

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