April is a great time to visit Biltmore Estate in Asheville if you love flowering trees and shrubs. As promised to our Facebook fans, here are some photos we took on April 12, just before the 80,000 tulips stole the show…enjoy!
Old Fort, North Carolina is a small town where big things happen: On Saturday April 27, 2013, three very different events will be taking place, but all connect history to the present…perfect for Old Fort.
This year, our area of Western North Carolina is the place to be in early May if you love food and local art!
| [Photo credit: Painters Greenhouse] |
Time to get your thyme! The 9th annual Painters Greenhouse Herb Festival is the weekend of April 13-14, 2013, at Painters Greenhouse in Old Fort, NC. Painters is one of our favorite places to buy plants and the herb festival features not only a variety of herbs on sale, but also local crafts, great food, live music and other activities. So while you’re walking among all the sage and rosemary, you can also check out the work of more than 25 local artisans and listen to fabulous music, featuring Lee Entrekin and Friends opening on Saturday followed by Mean Mary, then jazz and blues artist Linda Mitchell on Sunday morning followed by Jay Brown One-Man-Band performing American roots originals and classics.
| April marks the return of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail |
Reason #348 that we love Spring…the return of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail to the Inn on Mill Creek, our Bed & Breakfast near Black Mountain and Asheville, NC. Lovers of nectar producing plants, these beautiful butterflies flock to our phlox as soon as the phlox start flowering. The creeping phlox, low to the ground (hence its name), blooms in early April and then the tall garden phlox bloom in the summertime, keeping the Eastern Tiger Swallowtails very happy. And they make us happy. Happiness all around.
| Azaleas at Biltmore bloom in late April / early May |
Azaleas. Do you like them? If so, then you should check out the thousands of amazing azaleas at Biltmore Estate in nearby Asheville, NC, during late April / early May. They have an entire garden — at 15 acres, it’s more like a park — dedicated to this lovely spring-blooming shrub.
| The (very green) Black Mountains of North Carolina in springtime |
We’ve updated our list of ten hikes around our neck of the woods that are great for enjoying springtime. Western North Carolina has elevations between 1,000 and 6,690 feet, so keep in mind that late March and early/mid-April may still be on the wintry side in the mountains at the higher elevations, while the flowers and flowering trees are blooming at middle elevations such as ours at 2,300 feet. By the end of April and first part of May, spring takes hold everywhere.
| Say hello to our daffodils |
Spring is here! It’s our favorite season, so you can imagine how happy we are, even though there may be a little bit of winter here and there over the next few weeks. Our forsythia and daffodils don’t care and therefore, we shouldn’t care, right? So take a moment to welcome Spring and enjoy these photos taken at the Inn on March 20:
| White-breasted Nuthatch at the Inn |
When you watch the suet and seed birdfeeders at the Inn on Mill Creek, you may notice a smallish bird with a big head, a short tail, and a white chest, with striking black and gray markings and black going over the top of its head, quickly scooting up and down and all around a tree trunk at weird angles. If he looks like the guy in the photo above, then you’ve seen the White-breasted Nuthatch, our March bird in the 12 Months of Birding series that we’re doing on the blog.
Can we talk chocolate for a moment, because not only is Asheville known as Foodtopia, but it’s also Chocolatopia as far as we’re concerned. Early this month, we perused three chocolatier shops in Asheville: French Broad Chocolate Lounge, Chocolate Gems and Chocolate Fetish. Nom nom nom.
