RBG Kew Staffers Visit SHR

Although it delayed their trip for a week and caused more than a few travel and schedule changes, the Icelandic volcano eruption this spring was woefully inadequate in keeping Katie Price and Lucy Hart, staff members from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London, from their planned expedition to the southern Appalachians.  Katie is Team Leader for the Alpine and Woodland Displays at Kew. Lucy is Team Leader for the Northern Gardens Unit, Hardy Display Section.

 Beginning with a visit to the National Arboretum, Katie and Lucy then traveled to Tryon, NC to see the heralded Trillium display at Pearson’s Falls. After two busy weeks in WNC, our English friends traveled to the Raleigh-Durham area to visit with nurserymen and botanists there before a return to the mid-Atlantic area and Mt. Cuba gardens and research facility, the Shenks Ferry Wildflower Preserve and other Brandywine Valley gardens.

 Charming and knowledgeable, Katie and Lucy spent a fun and action-packed two weeks touring the southern Appalachians with John Turner, SHR director and Dr. James Costa, director of the Highlands Biological Station. Turner and Costa served as co-hosts for their trip and planned visits to some of the most interesting plant habitats of the southern Appalachians. We were fortunate to have Ed Schwartzman of the NC Natural Heritage Program, Dan Pittillo, retired head of the biology department at Western Carolina University, and Gary Kauffman, plant ecologist for North Carolina with the USFS - some of the area’s most knowledgeable botanists and biologists - to serve as guides.

 From the rare, disjunct species found in the Buck Creek Serpentine Barrens in the far western corner of NC to the rich and varied wildflower displays of the Great Smoky Mountains, the perpetually moist floral treasures of the Whitewater River Gorge, the high elevation habitats of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the rare and endangered species of cold and windy Roan Mountain, our Kew friends got to see firsthand the many rich and diverse plant habitats of the southern Appalachians.

 For more photos and a detailed description of our exploits in the southern Appalachians, Click Here.