"I love being asked to identify plants, and I don’t know which gives me more pleasure: to know what they are or not to know what they are."

- Elizabeth Lawrence, Charlotte Observer, February 23, 1969

As I stood in Elizabeth Lawrence's garden on a sunny Saturday in early May, talking with Katie Mullen (former Elizabeth Lawrence Garden Associate and Marco Polo Stufano Fellow), I noticed blooms in the top of a narrowly conical evergreen tree on the east property line.

For the past four years, I have kept a close eye on Elizabeth Lawrence's Camellia sasanqua hedge at the sidewalk. It has not been uncommon to see evidence of camellia tea scale in the hedge, which had been kept in shape for several years by shearing.

When I'm in the garden, time seems to stand still. Nothing else matters except that visceral connection I feel to Elizabeth and her world. I take time to really study the garden. I get down on the ground to appreciate a new perspective. I hold a bruised leaf to my nose to see if I can discern any fragrance. I weed an area—always carefully—searching for freshly uncovered bulbs emerging from dormancy. I have found SO much in this garden. Countless discoveries have come above the ground, but equally as many beneath the soil...

This past Saturday afternoon, I tackled a project with April Ryan (see my 12/11/12 post). For a garden curator of an historic property, it's important to see the garden as much as possible through the eyes of its original creator. In order to do that, the original design must be restored where time, plants or new ownership has changed it—purposefully or not.

I hope you will all help spread the word about this opportunity for Wing Haven—our latest "power2give" project, "the Love, History and Science of a Garden".

We are in need of funding for archive materials to properly preserve and house all of the fantastic items we're so fortunate to have in Elizabeth Lawrence's house.

It's hard to believe that only one week ago, we were in the clutches of a snow storm here in Charlotte, North Carolina. Today, I've opened all the windows in Elizabeth Lawrence's house, and the sweet songs of birds have replaced the dull droning of the heating system. Out in the garden, it's 75℉, daffodils are popping up all over, …

Sometimes it is harder to make changes in a garden than one would like. It was certainly difficult to make the final decision to take down the once-magnificent witch hazel, Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena', in front of Elizabeth Lawrence's house. Dealing with terminally ill plants is inevitable in gardening, especially in a garden with so many mature specimens.

"...it is said that a toad is worth twenty dollars a year, and I suppose a frog helps, too. In my garden there are more frogs than toads, as we have a pool, and their evening chorus is such a din I have been expecting the neighbors to complain, but all I have heard them say is they like it."

Elizabeth Lawrence
Charlotte Observer
February 5, 1961

"Walking down the garden path on a sultry afternoon in late July, I met a fragrance that took some time to trace. It was the mountain summersweet, Clethra acuminata, a delicate, elusive perfume that comes and goes with the breeze."

Elizabeth Lawrence, the Charlotte Observer, November 30, 1969

"Sometimes an unseasonable season - one that is exceedingly wet or dry, a summer of record heat, or a winter milder than usual - brings about the flowering of a plant that has been existing in the garden for quite a while without finding the right conditions for blooming."

Elizabeth Lawrence, The Little Bulbs

And so it is in Elizabeth Lawrence's garden even today. It has been a little over two and a half years since I started tending this awesome plot, and I am still amazed and delightfully surprised—on a nearly daily basis—by "new" blooming plants.

So at long last, I am finally making the time to sit, chill with nature, and write another post. How amazingly busy (in a good way) it has been here in Elizabeth Lawrence’s garden! I have kept my schedule so filled with reorganizing garden areas, research, our incredible volunteer group (the Keepers of the Garden), and several fantastic workshops, I’ve left myself no time to fill you all in on the garden goings-on. And there has been a whole lot going on!

"The special charm of a Southern spring is its earliness; it is as long drawn out as it is sweet."

Elizabeth Lawrence, A Southern Garden

What a winter it was in Elizabeth Lawrence’s garden! ( I say with great optimism.) Temperatures were generally colder for much longer than I remember in recent years. Although the extended winter chill set blooms back anywhere from two weeks to a month, with the recent prolonged spring warmth, flowers are popping out absolutely everywhere!