On my final day in the Raleigh area I had the treat of visiting three more wonderful and unique gardeners. I finished the day in the garden above, created by Phil Hathcock. He’s a stone sculptor and Japanese garden designer on the outskirts of Cary. His is a working garden, really the showroom for his garden design and construction business. In addition to this portion of the zen garden there are meandering paths through a moss garden, a tea house, water features, and good use of both specimen plants and groundcovers.

Charlotte Presley and her husband downsized a few years ago into a suburban house in Carey. They have about an acre with the back yard mostly in woods. This is the view they have from their kitchen and dining room windows. The rock walls are sandstone brought in to the site since there was no native rock on their lot.

This garden is very much a shade garden, receiving only brief and ever-moving patches of dappled sun. It makes for a restful view and the woodland provides ample bird habitat. Their cat, Oreo, likes to sit on a chair by the window looking out at the garden. Charlotte is an artist with plants. Her husband is an artist with stained glass and several paper media.

This woodland gazebo is in the front yard of Jean Mitchell’s home in Carey. They’ve been in their home since the early 1960s and have gardened since their kids grew up. Now nearly 80, Jean still has a playful attitude toward gardening. There’s a trail (one of many) with a sign that says “Diamondback Trail.” Along it Jean has painted some large tree roots to look like colorful snakes.

The Mitchell garden is large, almost entirely wooded, and backs up to Straight Creek, which is anything but straight. Down in the woods Jean was excited to show me a large clump of orange mushrooms that had sprouted on an oak stump.

Jean told me the gazebo is a favorite place to relax with a cold beer at the end of the day. That sounded like a good plan to me, except that I visited first thing in the morning. My end of the day beer was shared with Phil Hathcock looking out over his garden.

It’s been a great week in the Raleigh area. I’ve lost count of how many gardens I’ve visited and photographed. I shot more than 3100 frames, which with bracketing means about 1000 unique photos. Most were made with my trusty 24-105mm lens, a very versatile and sharp piece of glass. I carried a couple of other lenses with me, but didn’t use them much. Each night I downloaded files to my laptop and an external hard drive. The blog images were processed in Adobe Lightroom.

Thursday I get to spend most of the day in airplanes as I fly back to Bellingham. Friday is an office day. Then on Saturday I have a couple of portrait sessions. It’s also the national solar tour and our home is on the tour again this year.

Does timber bamboo count as a tree? When it’s growing in the garden of John Monroe, proprietor of the specialty nursery Architectural Trees, then I think it counts. The bamboo lines the fence along Amed Road leading to the nursery, but it’s most visible from inside the fence. John propagates and sells a huge variety of trees, mostly conifers and Japanese maples. If you’re looking for something interesting, unusual, and architectural then you’ve gotta get out to Bahama and see John.

Architectural Trees is out in the country northwest of Raleigh. The old farmhouse has been on the property for a long time, as have numerous log buildings. The pond provides irrigation water as well as a visual focal point. John writes about his trees on the Architectural Trees blog.

Those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest would never think to put the chaise lounge in a shady woodland border. But when you live in hot and humid North Carolina it makes perfect sense to create a hideaway in the shade where you can catch the breezes and relax away from the sun.

This is one small part of Maureen Buck’s garden near Franklinton. She retired here from Pennsylvania about four years ago and started creating the garden. She’s definitely a collector of conifers and Japanese maples. Most of the varieties are dwarfs that she expects to take several years to develop any size. Some are in the full sun in front of her home, but most are placed in the shady woodlands behind her home.

Maureen gardens with the company of four large dogs, which she says creates its own set of challenges. But she’s not giving up either the garden or the dogs. She and her husband also have about 45 acres of farmland and woods several miles from their house where they’re growing more trees. Sounds like a pretty decent retirement to me.

A little of this and a little of that could describe Jeanne Andrus’ generous garden in a gated community in Raleigh. She grew up on the property and said she used to fly kites as a kid in the meadow where her home now stands. It’s changed a lot since then, including an ever-expanding garden that surrounds the house. Jeanne started gardening when her kids grew up and hasn’t stopped since.

The largest part of the garden is a shady woodland where Jeanne is adding choice dwarf conifers and shade-loving perennials under the native loblolly pines. This yucca is in a sunny perennial border on the west side of the house, providing a visual break between a small lawn and the lake below. It’s the newest part of the garden.

After heavy rain last night, today was a bright sunny autumn day with cool temperatures and low humidity. The photographic challenge was working under all that sun. It sure was pleasant to be outside all day but I would have appreciated a few more clouds. While I was out at Maureen Buck’s there were photogenic puffies floating by so I could set up a shot and wait for the next passing cloud before tripping the shutter. Other times I pulled out the polarizing filter and cut the foliage glare and kept working. The sun hadn’t risen over the house when I photographed the yucca. I really like shade with open sky light but it’s a rare commodity.

I’m learning that gardeners and homeowners in North Carolina’s Piedmont region value their shade. I spent today photographing and enjoying three woodland gardens in and around Raleigh.

The photo to the right is from Suzanne Edney’s entrance garden. She’s a garden designer who moved to this property on the edge of Apex with her husband about 19 years ago. The previous owner had scraped the forest understory bare, essentially gardening with a bulldozer. In the intervening years Suzanne has planted a diverse collection of understory trees, shrubs, and perennials. She’s encouraged the native moss to grow in some of her paths.

In essence, on most of her extensive property she has created a managed woodland. Only in the front of the house does the garden resemble a more formal garden. That’s the part you’re seeing here.

This is very much a foliage garden, planted to provide vistas from inside the house. In her design work Suzanne told me that she insists on viewing each client’s property from the windows so she can envision the future view once the garden is established. She’s done that in her own garden so that there is an enticing view from each window in all seasons.

I started my day in Rita Mercer’s garden. It’s also a woodland garden, neatly maintained under the mixed hardwood and loblolly pine canopy. As I worked I constantly heard acorns falling from the oaks. I never got hit, but was glad I was wearing a cap. In September, Rita’s garden is primarily a foliage garden, but I could imagine it coming to life each spring starting with masses of hellebores and continuing with rhododendrons and azaleas.

Early autumn color came from a few tropicals and native shrubs in what she calls the “hanger garden” because it’s next to their airplane hanger. This brilliant blue-purple is the tender Tibouchina grandiflora, more commonly known as Glory Flower. That’s a wooden arbor over the path leading back to the house soft-focus in the background.

At the bottom of her hillside garden is a sunny pond with statuesque grasses and shrubs along the edge of the cul-de-sac. It stands in contrast to the rest of the garden which is in full shade nearly constantly. Photographing in such deep shade was a challenge, even on a bright and sunny morning. I found myself using long exposures and ISO 400 most of the time. If I were still shooting film it would have been nearly impossible.

I finished the day in Amelia Lane’s garden. She’s in a 1960s suburb. The front yard has a typical lawn, but bordered with a fan palm that complements one of her many native dogwoods. The back yard is a managed woodland. Like Suzanne, Amelia started with a nearly blank slate about 19 years ago and started planting and laying out paths. This photo is of a striking variegated lacecap hydrangea. Amelia says it doesn’t bloom very well in her shade, but the foliage makes up for it.

The hydrangea is growing around a concrete ball, one of many that Amelia has made and placed around the garden. At one point I was surprised by a “black hole globe.” It’s like a shiny gazing globe, but matte black. In reality, it’s an old bowling ball that’s had several years to weather.

All three of these gardeners were gracious hostesses. It was fun to visit and photograph their gardens and talk with them. I feel like I’ve made three new friends. I’ll be out in three more North Carolina gardens on Tuesday.

Farmers markets have some of the best-looking, tastiest, and freshest produce around. It doesn’t matter where you live, you’re going to get the good stuff when you buy direct from the farmer. This morning the Raleigh (North Carolina) farmer’s market got temporarily swamped by 600 garden writers on bus tour. We descended upon the farmers, talked, photographed, and bought produce. The hot peppers above are a variety called Long Horn.

One of the southern vegetables that just won’t grow in our cool Pacific Northwest gardens is okra. Some folks really like these long tender seedpods and others think it’s disgusting. I’m in the group that likes it almost anyway you can prepare it. That includes breaded in cornmeal and fried, stewed with tomatoes, and incorporated into a jambalaya. I’ve also had young and tender okra pods raw. Several market vendors had okra available for sale. I watched one lady pick up a pod and snap the end off, apparently testing its tenderness. She ended up not buying from that farmer.

The market is an open air affair, sheltered from the weather by a substantial roofed structure with a concrete floor. It’s owned and operated by the state of North Carolina, is open daily, and is one of several around the state.

Now that autumn has arrived pumpkins and gourds are ripe. Families are starting to put up fall decorations in anticipation of Halloween. These miniature pumpkins were part of a colorful farm display at the market. Several vendors had pumpkins, both little ones like these and big ones suitable for jack-o-lanterns. In between are the sweet pie pumpkins.

The Garden Writers Association annual syposium includes garden visits as well as this stop at the farmers market. We’ve been to the Doris Duke garden on the Duke University campus in Durham, Juniper Levels Botanic Garden at Plant Delights Nursery south of Raleigh, and the J C Raulston Arboretum at North Carolina State University. We’ve seen a huge number of interesting plants, way more than I can share here in a single post. Tomorrow our morning bus tour will include a community garden and three other gardens in the Raleigh-Durham area. Will it be plant overload? I don’t think so for our dedicated group of plant nerds. Photographing on a bus tour is challenging, but I continue to work with a tripod and assortment of lenses. I just have to wait a bit longer for the background to clear. At least no vendor issued bright yellow hats this year.