Sycamore bark peels off to change the coarser grey-brown-green bark of the lower trunk to a smooth stark white trunk above. Photo by Peter White.

Botanical Garden director Peter White loves trees. Chatting with him over a coffee at Open Eye, I mentioned featuring the Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) in The Citizen’s “Flora” column. He enthusiastically responded with numerous stories.

Its beauty is somewhat obscured by the foliage during the growing season, but in the winter no tree in the Carolinas is like the sycamore with its distinctive bark and habit. The base is somewhat like a typical tree bark. Now, I’ll leave it to your imagination to visualize a “typical” bark. As your eye travels up the trunk of the tree, you will notice bark peeling off in large irregular scales colored from gray and tan to green. Further upwards, the trunk becomes very smooth and snow white in color, reaching skyward to the very branch tips. During the winter months, even viewed from speeding vehicles, the stark white stems along riverbanks are unmistakable. It occurs throughout our state – one of our most magnificent native trees.

More »

The brilliant red of Red-berried Swamp Smilax adorns bare tree branches in swampy sites. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

If you are expert at using your “owl eyes” while driving, you may spot some red berries that are neither holly nor dogwood. Like holiday lights, these red berries are strung up in tangles and thickets. I’m describing the fruit of one of the species of catbrier, Smilax sp., that folks curse when they encounter them in the wild.

Most of the Smilax species bear round clusters of black fruit. One of them, the Coral Greenbrier, or Red-berried Swamp Smilax, Smilax walteri, sports brilliant red berries. Unlike the Common Greenbrier, Smilax rotundifolia, and Catbrier, Smilax bona-nox, this red-berried Smilax is most commonly found in the standing waters of the bogs and swamps of the Sandhills and coastal plain. Rarely will you spot it in our eastern Piedmont.

More »

Rachel and Alex Beck hugging a big tree near the Adams Tract trailhead kiosk in Carrboro’s Wilson Park. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

Years ago, a tradition was begun by the Eno River Association: Volunteers led New Year’s Day walks along the river that flows through Hillsborough and north through Durham to Falls Lake. Enthusiastic walkers turned out for hikes on some very cold days, and in recent years hundreds of appreciative walkers show up to share the beauty of the river’s winter woods on the year’s first day.

Here in our own community, we are fortunate to have nice trails along low-lying greenway corridors and the Botanical Garden’s nature trails, Mason Farm Reserve and the Battle Park forest between Forest Theater and the Chapel Hill Community Center.

More »

Basal leaf rosettes of Cardinal Flower must have winter sunlight. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

Have you checked on your Cardinal Flower lately? You are likely thinking, “Hey, this is the holiday season and Cardinal Flower, Lobelia cardinalis, blooms in the late summer. This is the season for holly and mistletoe and hoping for snow.”

But think back to the late-summer brilliant red of Cardinal Flowers and the hummingbirds so attracted to them. If you are a gardener and you’ve been challenged in keeping Cardinal Flower through the winter, now is the time to give a little holiday attention to those plants.

More »

By Ken Moore

Last week I received a call: “Ken, where can I find a deciduous holly for my wife for Christmas?” This small native tree is not commonly found in nurseries, but this time I had a happy answer.
Having recently dropped by the Carrboro Southern States to pick up the bow of 25 yards of red ribbon being donated for the town’s giant holiday wreath, I was stopped in my footsteps by a group of deciduous hollies in full berry there in the garden center.

Though holly fruit are correctly termed drupes, most of us call them berries, and these berries absolutely sparkled. Some of the tags on the various little trees were labeled “Sparkleberry,” one of several cultivars of deciduous hollies. The true deciduous holly, Ilex decidua, a single- to multi-trunk small tree, is commonly called Possum Haw. Now, who is going to get really excited about that name? I would like to know the story behind that one. Common in woods throughout the Piedmont and coastal plain, this little tree is thoughtlessly destroyed when forests are cleared for new residential development. Unlike the more familiar evergreen spiny-leaved American Holly, Ilex opaca, deciduous hollies are not readily noticed where they are so plentiful in our local woods.

More »

By Ken Moore

For 20 years, the holiday greenery that has adorned the columns of Carrboro’s Town Hall has been the result of the time and creativity of members of the Carrboro Community Garden Club.

Now, this group of gardeners is not your typical garden club organization. It does not belong to a Garden Club Council. It does not collect dues. A hat is passed around if the group needs a few dollars. It does not have any official elected officers, though several individuals voluntarily perform essential functions to keep the group loosely organized. Members meet monthly at members’ homes, where they enjoy walking about one another’s gardens, discovering new plants and gardening ideas. All learn from members freely sharing growing wisdoms and experiences. These monthly gatherings have also become a rather serendipitous gourmet feast of members sharing food and treats. There are meeting agendas, but they are frequently altered on the spot to meet the immediate interests of the members. Typically everyone enjoys talking at once and, amazingly, some rather remarkable things get planned and executed.

The group has three ongoing projects in the Carrboro community.

More »

By Ken Moore

We’ve finally had some killing frosts and winter is beginning to settle in. This is the season we are accustomed to being the hosts of garden mums, Chrysanthemum x morifolium, with their neon-like orange, yellow and red colors, as well as the quieter colors of pink and white of Sasanqua Camellia, Camellia Sasanqua, cultivars. Also noticeable, more often smelled than seen, is the very fragrant, very tiny, flowered evergreen Sweet Olive, Osmanthus x Fortunei.

So it is often a surprise and a joyful relief to happen upon something different in flower this late in the season. For years, I have enjoyed the several specimens of Climbing Aster, Aster carolinianus,
(Ampelaster carolinianus) that have remained in full flower after killing frosts through the Thanksgiving holidays. This is one of our native asters; it occurs infrequently in our Southeastern coastal plain and more commonly further south down to Florida. It is somewhat surprising that it is such a hardy and sturdy grower in our Piedmont, a bit beyond its natural occurrence. It does not seem to pose a threat of spreading rampantly in gardens and in the wild because its characteristic late flowering doesn’t find many pollinating insects buzzing around to assist it in setting viable seed.

More »

Wreath of bay leaf branches woven into grape vine. Photo by Ken Moore

By Ken Moore

Back in the mid 1970s, UNC botany professor Dr. C. Ritchie Bell got an idea while teaching an Economic Botany class. In addition to teaching, Dr. Bell liked to cook, and he discovered that the leaves of a native plant were every bit as fine as those exotic bay leaves from California and the Mediterranean.

That plant, Carolina Red Bay or Swamp Bay, Persea borbonia, is an evergreen tree of the coastal plain from Virginia all the way to Louisiana.

More »

By Ken Moore

I believe we humans have lost the ability to step back and fully appreciate what we have around us. In the fall, folks look forward to the brilliant display of deciduous trees as the greens give way to an arsenal of other colors before the seasonal falling of leaves. And every year we try to plan vacations and family drives to western Carolina to enjoy “Peak Week.”

To assist us, staff of the Blue Ridge Parkway and regional tourist offices list predictions of “Peak Color” weeks at various elevations.

I’ve been trying to catch the “Peak Week” for decades. Each time, I am greeted with: “Oh, you should have been here last week!” or “You’ll have to come back up next week to catch the ‘peak.’” I believe I did catch the peak once, but it was hard to determine because of the fog and wind and rain. The colors of the leaves pressed against the windows of my truck were really spectacular.

More »

An unusually heavy fruiting Persimmon Tree in the middle of Chapel Hill. Photo by Ken Moore

By Ken Moore

A desperate call two weeks ago: “Ken, that persimmon tree near my office is already dropping fruit and I’m leaving for a couple of days and don’t want them to go to waste!” I assured him I would collect those ‘simmons during his absence. We shared mutual curiosity that the ripe persimmons were dropping before the first frosts this year. So, it must be shorter days rather than frigid nights that trigger fruit ripening.

More »

By Ken Moore

“My poke’s bigger than your poke!”

Believe it or not, that challenging brag has passed between more than two energetic gardeners in this area. While folks may consider the common American Pokeberry, Phytolacca americana, merely a weed, more and more really sophisticated gardeners admire and grow this giant native perennial.

Poke is a striking plant for all seasons.

More »

By Ken Moore

Referring to my annual enthusiastic descriptions of most common flowering weeds, gardening friend Sally recently stated that she was waiting for Ken Moore’s “love letter” to the Frost Aster. Aptly named, Frost Aster, Aster pilosus (Symphyotrichum pilosum), does flower during the frosty days of mid-October.

More »

A variety of plants — from flowering annuals and perennials to kitchen herbs, tomatoes, peppers and even a few stalks of corn — are easily grown on a sunny deck or patio. Photo by Ken Moore 

By Ken Moore 

Fall is for planting, a time when one can get a spade into the soil and we have ample rainfall. Not this year. While we home gardeners lament our situation, let’s all pray to whatever spirits we honor for our local farmers who are hard pressed to begin those fall crops we so take for granted every September through December at our Carrboro Farmers’ Market.

More »

 
Closeup of Bidens flower head showing central tiny disc flowers surrounded by ray flowers hosting a crab spider with captured prey. Photo by Ken Moore

By Ken Moore

One plant
To me, Labor Day means the flowering of Bidens aristosa and Bidens polylepis. Don’t worry about which is which. Their golden-yellow, daisy-like flowers are so similar that I leave it to the younger botanists to devote long hours to sorting them. It’s enough for me to know that the former occurs in the coastal plain and the later occurs in the mountains and both commonly overlap in our piedmont.

The Latin name, Bidens, means two teeth; it’s descriptive of two tooth-like projections on top of the flattened seed of some species. You will recognize and cuss the seed of the very common Spanish Needles, Bidens bipinnata, with three and four long needle-like teeth that grab your clothes by the hundreds during fall walks. Spanish Needles don’t have showy flowers like the first two species mentioned above. The showy-flowered Bidens go by numerous common names: Bur Marigold, Tickseed, Ditch Daisy, Ozark Tickseed Sunflower, and the list goes on. You take your pick. Go ahead, make up your own name and you’re more likely to remember it.

More »

 
Maine Island deck-level Sumac. Photo by Ken Moore

By Ken Moore 

I was not looking forward to the long drive to visit cousins in New England, but the tediousness and hazards of highway travels can be pleasantly calmed by viewing roadside vegetation along the way.

Like any wild botanist, I’m most content when identifying plants at 60-plus miles per hour. That’s why my wife prefers to drive. That’s fine with me, and she remains much calmer.

Along the way we enjoyed many patches of sumac. In some states, mowing crews had left the patches; sadly, in others, similar patches had been mowed or killed by herbicide application.

More »