Hill Country Gardens, Part One

For the month of May, our Sense of Place workshop theme was gardens and gardening in the Chattahoochee Hill Country. The Thursday evening talk was given by Mike Cunningham, co-owner (along with his wife, Judy) of Country Gardens Nursery in Newnan, Georgia. Meeting in The Studio, a new space in Serenbe Community with doors opening into a courtyard with a fountain and lovely plantings. Eight of us attended the talk, in which Mike shared information on about thirty native plants, including histories of their discovery in the wild, uses by wild animals, and site characteristics for optimum growth. Mike also brought along several of the plants he was discussing, including a stately red buckeye (in bloom), sweet shrub, and native wisteria. I am grateful for Mike's advocacy of growing native plants; I welcome the prospect that a homeowner could enhance conditions for wildlife, particularly birds and pollinator insects. Mike himself is an exceedingly kind and considerate person, who not only agreed readily to speak in our workshop series, but also showed up at Hill Country Montessori on short notice (and feeling unwell) to consult with the school on a garden grant application. His depth of knowledge is stunning. As fate would have it, our car was in the shop, so Mike drove Valerie and me back to our house. We took advantage of his stop to ask a few questions about planting native species on our property (particularly with an eye toward replacing the boxwoods and nandina that I abhor). I bought one of his "demonstration plants", a native wisteria, and planted it the next day in front of a decorative well house in our front yard. I can't wait for it to cover the structure in a late-spring blanket of sweet purple blooms a few years from now.