Today was a garden day. The friend with whom I am staying (Roger) asked me what I wanted to do today - a beautiful spring day - and I said I wanted to walk. Flora and fauna were calling to me, as they often do.
So first we headed to the New Hanover County Arboretum NC Cooperative Extension - a small arboretum (about 7 acres) in Wilmington. Not a lot is in bloom right now, although there are always camellias! There were quite a few volunteers working today, doing cleanup and pruning. There are a bunch of specialty gardens, among them a butterfly garden, a pollinator garden, a Japanese garden, a rose garden, and herb garden and a rose garden. And more. I, having - apparently - one of my more clumsy days, managed to throw myself off balance as I was walking through the Japanese garden and fell into a bunch of ferns. No harm though and no damage to the garden or to me!
Next, we headed over to Aerlie Gardens. This is a much larger garden, about 67 acres, and was first established as a garden way back in 1884. We walked over pretty much the entire path/trail. Again, not much was actually in bloom, but there were some exceptions. More on that below.
The Chandler Live Oak was pointed out to me while on the tour in Savannah, supposedly 300+ years old and with a height of about 54' and a circumference of about 17 '. However, that pales in comparison to the Aerlie Oak. According to Wikipedia: "Airlie Oak is a 500-year-old southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) located on the grounds of Airlie Gardens. In 2007, Airlie Oak was 128 feet (39 m) tall, had a trunk circumference exceeding 21 feet (6.4 m) and a crown spread of 104 feet (32 m) when measured by North Carolina Forest Service employees. At that time, it was designated the largest live oak in North Carolina."
For someone from the northeast, it's fascinating to see these amazingly large and amazingly old Southern live oaks, trees that keep their leave all year long. And so many that one sees in this area are dripping with spanish moss - which is neither Spanish nor moss.
There were camellias everywhere, with an amazing variety of colors. I know there are something like 250 species of camellias, and I also know that only a few of these are commonly grown as landscape shrubs. I love the fact that camellias are evergreen shrubs that bloom from fall to spring (depending on exactly where one is) when little else is blooming in the garden. I posted pictures of camellias when I was talking about the Columbus Botanical Garden, so I'm not posting more here, but we did see a few other things flowering in certain areas, among them azaleas, pansies, daffodils, and a few tiny little yellow roses.
Stepping onto and standing on the dock ...
We were also lucky enough to see some non-flora life as we explored.
And finally, some last shots taken as we walked around, enjoying the day and the place and the time.
What an absolutely lovely way to spend a day, here in North Carolina.
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