Piedmont Chapter

Next Meeting: September 20, 2025

 

Please join us September 20 at 10 am, when Tim Calkins presents his talk, Bulbs from Big to Little: a Love of Amaryllids. Social time begins at 9:30 and all are welcome to attend.

 

Bobby Ward shares some garden grown, hardy amaryllids and their backgrounds below.

The upper flower is the widely grown passalong plant in the U.S. South named H. x johnsonii, an old hybrid from the U.K. in the early 1800s. It is believed to be a cross between H. reginae and H. vittatum and is known as St. Joseph’s lily. It is bright red, has thin white stripes in its throat, and somewhat narrow petals. The lower flower is Hippestrum x ‘Voodoo’ (aka Naughty Lady hippeastrum). It is believed to be a 20th century Dutch cross of an early 1700s hybrid, reportedly a cross between H. x johnsonii and H. aulicum.

 

 

May Picnic Fun

Thanks to Sam Jones for hosting and Sandy Harwood for organizing a wonderful picnic!

 

 

 

Welcome to Our Newest Members!

 

Please welcome these new members when you see them at the upcoming picnic or our regular meetings, resuming this fall. Both Michael and Frank gave detailed and interesting responses to Amelia Lane’s queries, thank you so much!

 

Michael Bruner joined as part of our 40th anniversary free for under 40’s membership promotion. I came across NARGS Piedmont Chapter at the JC Raulston plant sale. Honestly, I was looking for somewhere to sit down and ended up listening to the presentation which resonated with me. I have always been fascinated with plants and nature. This seemed like a great community where I can learn and meet interesting folks.

I live in Laurel Hills so my soil is very rocky with oak trees providing heavy shade. Pros and cons here. Leaf management is always top of mind when thinking about what to plant and where. I am still new to this journey and recently planted Japanese maple, hostas, rosemary, and flowers. My backyard is a glorified dog run with room for improvement and is a blank slate. Many areas to improve and start rock gardens which is both exciting and challenging. I look forward to learning and meeting everyone soon!

 

Frank Bell is another great member who recently rejoined the chapter. I joined (rejoined) the Piedmont Chapter because Ozzie Johnson was invited to speak at the April meeting and it was the right time to rejoin. I knew I was going to come see Ozzie and I wanted to be a member. Ozzie is an old friend, mentor and inspiration for me.

My favorite plant/ flower is the Camellia. They begin flowering in September and finish in May. The older plants are covered in a variety of flower colors and forms. The sasanquas are fragrant. They all grow well in piedmont NC with little care, I began my garden when Kai Mei Parks started her nursery behind her home in Chapel Hill, and we became friends.I learned a lot from Kai Mei and got a lot of great camellias and other plants from Camellia Forest Nursery. My preference is woody plants. When I started my garden, I planted a lot of trees and shrubs along with some perennials. It would take longer for the woody plants to mature so they were planted first. Over the years the Woodys required less care and gave more in garden structure, flower color and leaf form variety. The older the garden, the less perennial were the perennials. I like a lot of different perennials, grasses, vines and bamboos, but the woodys are first.

My first Piedmont Chapter meeting was in Chapel Hill in 1995 when Paul Jones, Curator of the Duke Gardens (then new) Asian Gardens, gave a presentation on his recent plant trip to Kunming and Yunnan, China. He mentioned he was planning a return trip to Yunnan in 1996. After the meeting I met Paul and told him I wanted to go. I ended up making 4 trips to Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou with Paul and a diverse array plantspeople. You never know what will happen at a NARGS meeting. Of course, I want to find out what plants will thrive in a rockery in this area. And, I want to see what everyone else is doing with rockeries. My gardening challenge is yet to be found. Recent retirement allows more time, and maybe lightning will strike again at a NARGS meeting.

 

April Meeting Photos

 

March Meeting Photos

all photos by Sandy Harwood

 

 

February Meeting Photos

 

 

 

 

January Meeting Photos

 

 

December Means Seedex Time!

We dream of a jungle of mature Rhododendron, Enkianthus, Eucryphia, Clethra, and Hydrangea villosa with an undergrowth of Primula, Meconopsis, Lilium, Trillium, and Arisaema. We are sellers of dreams. We sell dreams to ourselves and hope to pay for their reality by work and knowledge. We sell dreams to you. What are seeds but dreams in packets? — Jim Archibald (1941-2010), from March 2001 seed list and newsletter.

Piedmont Chapter members have been busy, packing seeds from donors all over the world for distribution via the NARGS Seedex. Sixteen chapters do this work over a few days in December.

NARGS members: ordering begins December 15, availability list is posted here.

 

 

November Meeting Photos

 

At our November meeting, members were fascinated to learn in detail about the joys and travails of plant hunters. Greg Paige’s talk gave us a renewed appreciation for the field work he and others are pursuing to protect and preserve endangered species worldwide.

Kaleb Goff, a Ph.D candidate at NC State gave a brief talk on his work with western Erigerons as it relates to his research on plant adaptations to a changing climate. He brought plants to share and we look forward to seeing how they do in the Piedmont!

 

 

October Meeting Photos

Members enjoyed a very interesting talk by Jerry Yu about a recent trip back to his China homeland, where he encountered many of our familiar plants in their native habitats.  

 

Amelia and Richard Lane followed with a brief report on a fascinating NARGS trip to Newfoundland, where the lady slipper orchids and other wildflowers were putting on quite a show.

 

 

 

September Meeting Photos

 

 

September kicked off the Piedmont Chapter’s 2024-2025 meeting year and featured Ryan Schiller presenting  Hidden Gems of the Southern Blue Ridge Escarpment. Thanks Ryan, for a great program and wonderful plant donations! Jerry Yu served as auctioneer for an incredible selection of rare and choice natives.  Ryan’s slide list at this link: Schiller. Ryan PDF

 

Piedmont Picnic 2024

 

A gentle, intermittent drizzle kept the plants, as well as guests, cool and happy in the garden of Rudy Riggs and Jim Phillips at the Piedmont Chapter May Picnic. This magnificent garden is beautifully maintained by Jim and Rudy, and full of well grown examples of plants deemed by many to be ungrowable in North Carolina. Thanks so much for a memorable picnic!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plant Sale at Raulston Blooms

 

The annual Piedmont Chapter plant sale April 26 and 27 was a great success!

 

We are so grateful for the generous donations by Tony Avent and all our members who shared special plants from their own gardens. Thanks also to the JC Raulston Arboretum, for allowing us space again this year at the exciting Raulston Blooms event.

 

Fantastic leadership by Plant Sale Chair Jim Hollister, assisted by all the enthusiastic volunteers, made for a fun and profitable plant sale!

 

 

 

 

NARGS Award Winner David Pulman

 

Piedmont Chapter members David Pulman and Jeremy Schmidt were announced this spring as winners of the NARGS 2024 Geoffrey Charlesworth Writing Prize for their article, Creating a Crevice Garden: A Shared Journey, published in the 2023 Winter issue of the NARGS Quarterly. 

The Geoffrey Charlesworth Prize is given annually for the best article in the Rock Garden Quarterly. Congratulations to David and Jeremy! 

 

NARGS Award Winner Richard Lane

 

Piedmont Chapter member and NARGS Treasurer Richard Lane was presented with the NARGS Award of Merit by Bobby Ward at the March 16 meeting.

This award is given to persons who have made outstanding contributions to rock and alpine gardening and to the North American Rock Garden Society, Congratulations Richard!

 

Scott Zona’s Open Garden

 

Members of the Piedmont Chapter recently enjoyed touring the garden of our April speaker, Scott Zona. On a cool, rainy day, the rock garden was still singing with color, texture and even a hummingbird or two. Thank you Scott! 

Plant List for Scott Zona Garden

 

 

 

 

 

Marian Stephenson Appreciation Day

 

Saturday, April 20, 2024 was designated Marian Stephenson Appreciation Day by the Piedmont Chapter. Bobby Ward spoke about her long service and twenty year tenure as newsletter editor:

 

The Piedmont Chapter was founded in 1985 and notice of early irregular meetings was communicated by post cards, flyers, or mention in the old Saturday garden section of the News & Observer, which used to include garden columns by Tony Avent and by Sandra Ladendorf, our chapter co-founder.

The first newsletter published regularly as The Trillium (vol. 1, no. 1) was by Bobby Ward using early desk top publishing software called PageMaker. The chapter had a contest to name the newsletter and provide a logo design and chapter member Thurman Maness of Pittsboro suggested the name and design of our original trillium logo. He received a one-year membership to the Piedmont Chapter. Bobby edited The Trillium from Jan. 1991 until July 2004, a total of 14 years. Then Marian Stephenson took over as editor in  Sept. 2004, and she added color in January 2006. She retired as editor in April 2024—a total of 20 years, publishing approximately 100 issues of our newsletter. In the first few years she had co-editor help from chapter member Dave Duch.

Marian brought color to The Trillium and took it into the 21st century with electronic publishing, thereby saving on postage and mailing costs, which Bobby Wilder, our treasurer, greatly appreciated.  She continued the tradition of highlighting articles by our upcoming speakers in each issue. Of all the chapters of NARGS in the U.S. and Canada, Marian has been the longest serving newsletter editor. In addition, Marian served a six-year term as chair of our chapter, during which time she and the board updated our by-laws and in 2004 she chaired the highly successful NARGS annual meeting that our chapter hosted in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. When the Piedmont Chapter celebrated its 30 anniversary in November 2015 with Panayoti Kelaidis, the current NARGS president as our guest speaker, Marian was recognized by our chapter and NARGS with the NARGS Award for Service given by chapter chair Charlie Kidder. 

We thank Marian Stephenson for her many years, contributing her time and talents to the Piedmont Chapter. As a token of our gratitude for her service we have a planted trough from “Lasting Impressions” by Amelia Lane and Beth Jimenez. We ask you here today and at home to give Marian a round of applause in appreciation for service to our chapter. 

 

Chapter member David White Receives NARGS Award

On April 20, David White was presented the NARGS Marvin E. Black Award. Established in 1990, this award is given to a member of the Society who excels at promoting membership in NARGS; organizing study weekends, national, and international meetings. They should also be involved in such activities as planning trips to study plants and to meet other plant people. The emphasis shall be placed on a member who has helped other people to reach their potential in the plant world.

December, 2023: Piedmont Chapter Members Pack Seed for NARGS Seedex

Thanks to all who helped with this great project, and will receive an extra 10 seed packets in first round ordering! Ordering begins December 15. Check out the list and plan your order at the website – you must be a NARGS member to order.

Bobby Wilder, 1932-2022

One of the Piedmont Chapter’s longest members, Bobby Wilder, died September 25, 2022, age 90.

Bobby attended the organizing meeting of our chapter in the fall of 1985, when he responded to a newspaper notice of a rock garden meeting in Chapel Hill that was organized by Edith Boyer, Nancy Goodwin, and Sandra Ladendorf. Sandra was elected first chair of our chapter and would go on to become national president of NARGS in 1990. That meeting was attended by 25 people and thus, Bobby became a founding member of the Piedmont Chapter of NARGS.

Bobby became our fourth chapter chair, serving from 1990 until 1993. In 1994 he took over as treasurer serving 20 years through 2014 until David White became treasurer. But Bobby continued to handle the membership records and email The Trillium to our membership.

Bobby served a two-year term on the NARGS board of directors in the mid-1990s and attended many national meetings in the United States and Canada, representing our chapter.

Our Piedmont Chapter has hosted five national meetings: in 1990, 1999, 2004, 2013, and 2017. Bobby served on the planning committee for each of those five meetings—volunteering in various capacities including registration, making name tags, and treasurer.

Over the decades, until recent years, he home-hosted scores of our chapter’s out-of-town speakers, who stayed overnight while visiting our chapter. Many were repeats from previous years—except one who found Bobby’s liquor cabinet after dinner guests had left and Bobby had gone to bed.

Bobby grew up in Johnston County, North Carolina, in the Corinth community. He served four years in the U.S. Navy, stationed initially at San Diego, and upon discharged earned a B.S. degree in Science Education at N.C. State University. He then taught science at Daniels High School in Raleigh for several years.

Bobby had a 43-year relationship with his partner, Jack Lamm, who died in 2001. Together, they co-owned a picture framing business on Dixie Trail in Raleigh, called Century Framing.

His health had been gradually declining during the Covid pandemic when he was unable to venture outside and it worsened with a collapsed lung this summer. He recovered from that and was in a rehab facility but making plans with his extended family to return home when he unexpectedly died.

The Piedmont Chapter has made a donation to the Bobby Wilder and Jack Lamm Horticultural Scholarship Endowment at NC State University in Bobby Wilder’s memory.

By Bobby Ward