A little while back and for a good long while an extraordinary individual and sometimes mentor of mine, Ken Moore, crafted a long string of articles for the Carrboro Citizen newspaper. His contribution was called Flora. It inspires me – has for a good bit – and will continue to whisper to me as this project, Refugium, moves along. I’ll be sharing a bit about what goes on in the small world of the Coker Arboretum, as well as what has gone on along the grounds of the University of North Carolina campus and anywhere else that seems appropriate to the moment.
If you’re not familiar with the Coker Arboretum, well, that’s OK. UNC is well and rightly known for its lovely campus. The Arboretum contributes to that reputation. It’s a relatively small garden on the oldest part of the UNC campus and is part of the North Carolina Botanical Garden. There are no buildings there and no parking lot. Just a bunch of plants. And it’s pretty awesome. As curator, I get to decide what goes in our little living museum – and what goes out.
Thanks for coming along.
About the name: A refugium is a safe space, a place to shelter, and – more formally – an area in which a population of organisms can survive through a period of unfavorable conditions or crisis. We intend this column to inspire you to seek inspiration and refuge in nature, particularly at the Arboretum!
It’s winter. I’ll be clear from the start: don’t much care for cold, would rather be warm. But this is the climate we get, so there it is. Frosty mornings may be less abundant than they were a half century ago, but that does not make them any less painful. When I stepped out of the shop to have a morning look about the place, I found the sweetgum balls all stuck to the sad crunchy grass. The fleshy leaves of Rhododendron and Illicium are limp flags on shivery twigs. 10 minutes and my chin is numb. Again, I do not particularly care for cold weather. And I’ll stop griping about it and get on with the flowery bits.
This time of year there are a few bright flecks of color to be enjoyed. I was surprised by an early English primrose (Primula vulgaris var. sibthorpii) in bloom. These perennials, native to Southcentral Europe, are usually seen later in the season. The low growth and crinkly bright green leaves lend themselves well to the edges of paths. A keen eye (and a better camera) will discern two types of flowers, so-called pin-eyed and thrum-eyed. These descriptors refer to the placement and size of the reproductive organs. The pin-eyed flower has a prominent stigma; the thrum-eyed has more-visible anthers and the stigma is lower down in the corolla tube. This arrangement allows for cross-fertilization by certain long-tongued bees and moths.
English primrose (Primula vulgaris var. sibthorpii) Image via Geoffrey Neal
Over behind the bus stop at the northeast corner of the Arboretum is a rather rangy patch of dark green stems, about half a meter tall and shooting out of the ground in every direction. Most of the year the stems are clothed in small bright green leaves and the occasional bit of trash that blows into the patch from Raleigh Street. Right now, though, the bright yellow flowers of winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) are lighting up this otherwise dark corner. Each flower is about 1cm across and a bit longer. They emerge before the leaves. This is one of my favorite shrubs, a love I share in my own garden with bands of perpetually hungry deer. It spreads readily (but not with utter abandon), is easily dug and moved about in a garden, tolerates some shade and blooms in January.
Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) Image via Geoffrey Neal
A surprising Southeastern native woody plant you’ll see in flower right now is our Carolina aster (Ampelaster carolinianus). It was on the outside edge of the Arbor along Cameron Avenue at its intersection with Raleigh Street. (The past tense above refers to both the plant and the Arbor itself. In preparation for the rebuilding of the Arbor, we have been removing plants and clearing space for the inevitable chaos that will spring forth as construction begins on this long-awaited project. More on that later. For the purposes of this paragraph, the aforementioned aster was replanted on the west side of the Arboretum, there’s a split rail fence that runs alongside Arboretum Alley. I’m pleased to note that as of this moment, it is growing and has even allowed a flower or two to pop out. Delightful.) This late bloomer is sometimes referred to as a vine, sometimes as a trailing perennial. It grows to 3 m or more but does not attach itself naturally to structures. It will grow up an arbor or trellis with a little help from its friends, however, and from a gardener’s point of view, it’s wise to offer that bit of assistance, as the raggedy light purple daisy-like flowers are enjoyed best without having to stoop. The flowers are 3 cm across and have a small orange-yellow disc. The rays are slender and curl inward a bit when it gets really cold. The leaves turn that nice dark reddish purple after the first frost.
Climbing aster (Ampelaster carolinianus) Image via Geoffrey Neal
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One of the last shrubs to lose its leaves is the Chinese wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox ‘Grandiflorus’). There are a couple of these planted in the Arboretum’s west side along the President’s Walk. The long, tapering leaves turn a sickly yellow before they fall, not really a show-stopper, but the leaves do hold on for a good long spell, and it’s nice to see at least one thing along the walk that isn’t brown or gray. An unsolicited opinion, not universally shared, and that’s OK as I’m certain we all could agree. I do love the winter garden…if it could only be a bit warmer. Back to the wintersweet: the flowers – in nodding clusters about the twigs – are understated, creamy yellow with (sometimes) a bit of burgundy along the throat. I find their fragrance to be noticed on the reasonable stroll, somewhat pleasing, not at all offensive. In fact well worth slowing up a bit for as you rush from this to that.
Chinese wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox ‘Grandiflorus’) Image via Geoffrey Neal
Last on our little tour is a plant that we have in great abundance. As you walk along the paths flanking the stone channel that works its way through the Arboretum, you may have noticed some rather raggedy looking bare patches of earth flanked by a shrinking population of Lenten roses (Helleborus orientalis). The common name is misleading because they are not roses at all, but members of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae). This plant has long been a darling of gardeners in the Southeast for its sturdy habit, and critter-proof foliage (the stems, leaves and flowers are all poisonous), and interesting multi-hued flowers in the deep chill of January and February. The lovely evergreen clumps of winter flower, rarely taller than 30cm, are remarkable. They vary in color from pure white to dusky lavender-purple. The petals are often spotted with contrasting flecks of red. No wonder it’s a beloved garden plant!
Lenten rose 1 (Helleborus orientalis) Image via Geoffrey Neal
But here’s the thing. A few years back I started noticing Hellebore plants along the edge of the creek that runs through my little neighborhood in northern Chatham County. Not unusual to see the occasional escapee from an adjoining yard and garden find its way downhill. After all, there’s plenty of Mahonia and Elaeagnus and Chinese holly popping up – wait a minute, those are invasive woody perennial plants. Bad actors, unwelcome guests, weeds. Those are the ones that have us slowly nodding our heads and clucking softly to ourselves in light despair when we spy them flanking the side of a big box retail space or framing the front stoops in the next freshly stamped subdivision.
I’m going try to not beat you about the head with this as we move forward but remember: Invasive plants – bad (kinda baked into their definition), native plants – good (for the most part, or it depends).
So what does that mean for the Lenten rose. It can’t be invasive, right? They sell it in Carrboro!
Well…nope. While it’s not yet at the top of the list of invasive species compiled by the North Carolina Invasive Plant Council (NCIPC), it is on the list. NCIPC ranks on a 1-3 scale:
1 is a Severe Threat
2 is a Significant Threat
3 is a Lesser Threat
And our dear Lenten rose? It’s on list 3 – for now. I’m of a mind that it’s on the way up as I have seen a tendency over the last decade for it to spread out of its neatly horticultured boxes into surrounding wilder and uncultured(?) spaces. And it’s decidedly not from around here, so…yeah. It’s got to go.
As curator of this garden, I’m tasked to decide which plants stay, which plants go and which new plants to add to the collection. The Arboretum is a living collection, a museum of plants. And like any museum, the composition of the collection is a curator’s primary responsibility. This collection just happens to be alive, which allows me to think about the collection in temporal as well as spatial terms. That is to say, in considering where plants should be in this Arboretum, I (like most gardeners) consider many factors: size and shape at maturity, light and moisture requirements, bloom time, structure/architecture/texture, fruit set, etc. Additionally we are consulting with fellow professionals and taking into account the behavior of each plant, how this entity behaves over time. These observations are essential in assessing the downstream impacts of our upstream actions.
Lenten rose 2 (Helleborus orientalis) Image via Geoffrey Neal
Some 70 years back, for example, there were privet plants (a lot of privet plants) lining one of the main paths through the Arboretum. We have since recognized them to be noxious invasives and they were removed many years ago. That recognition came from observations and communications as privet jumped its fences and proceeded to populate forest understories across the state, crowding out native shrubs in the process. Not all plants play well with others. Yikes.
So now we have a catastrophe of Lenten roses, where once we had a few manageable clumps. Helleborus orientalis is one of several plants that will no longer be in the Arboretum. (My plan is to have them all out within 5 years; I’m on year 2 right now). I’m sending these 50-year-old plants to the shredder, next season’s mulch in the making. And there will be lots more digging and good work to remove thousands of plants that have been quietly trying to populate the lower reaches of Battle Park. Come by anytime to say your farewells. And let me know if you want to help out!
Geoffrey Neal is the curator of the Coker Arboretum and director of the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference. You can see more of his photography at @soapyair and @gffry. Margot Lester is a certified interpretive naturalist, writer and editor at The Word Factory. Keep up with what’s going on at the Arboretum between columns at @cokerarboretum and @ncbotanicalgarden.
Refugium: Winter in the Arboretum Chapelboro.com.
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