Wilmington, North Carolina ~ Part Deux ~ Airlie Gardens

When I re-read my last post, I had to laugh. I sure mentioned the pub a lot, didn't I? Even Mr. A's shirt says 'PUB' on the front. Maybe I should change the name of my blog to 'The Inebriated Gardener'? Or 'The Lush Landscaper'? Or 'The Tipsy Tiller'?



It's all right, I only have pints on days ending in 'Y'. Or when my brother in law is visiting...woo! It's been a busy/fun last few days during his visit. Didn't make it to the Azalea Festival, but we made it out to some other cool places that will be the subject of my next post. So you better come back and read it!

On to the Airlie Gardens in Wilmington!!

This place was beautiful. It's open all year round, people rent it our for weddings and events. I'm sure it's the cornerstone of the Azalea Festival.

If you want to read more about the Airlie Gardens, click here. There's so much history involved, I don't think I have the patience to type it all out. The gist is that this was owned by a family for many, many years, there was a mansion on the property at one point. And the gardens were opened for public enjoyment in 1999 (I think).

The admission was very inexpensive, $5 a person. I love gardens and flowers, but if you're charging $40 a head, you better bring on da serious funk or I'll be pretty upset.

There were drifts of beautiful, pink-tinged, ruffly daffodils right outside the entrance. Mr. A made fun of me for taking pictures when we weren't even inside the gate yet.


I'd kill for this arbor.

Well, that sounds kind of harsh, doesn't it? Ok, I'd slightly maim for this arbor.


The place was full of tulips. Just awesome to see such vivid drifts of colour...


My favourite part of the tour was seeing all the very old live oaks on this property. The oldest live oak in North Carolina is on the grounds. It's estimated to be about 400 years old. And it's breathtaking. Pictures don't do justice to the awesomeness of the thing. Almost, though.




More live oaks. I LOVE the Spanish Moss. I know it's the scourge of some of you Floridian gardeners, but I can't help it. It just looks so haunting.








Mr. A showing the scale of the size of these things



There was a camellia garden, which was still quite beautiful at this point.



This is the area called The Pergola Garden. The path of the pergola ended at a large pond, and there were stone benches where you could sit down with a fountain.






I think this Dionysian fellow kind of looks like Sean Connery.

'Yesh, you shexshay beasht...'


There is a small family church on the grounds, and a quaint little graveyard. The church is still used. They have pictures and bios hanging up in the main building of all the family that owned the grounds and were buried there.






Crazy name on this one...


Here are some more random pictures that I took of all the beautiful trees and flowers:
















Mr. A likes to tiptoe through the tulips...


...and play with microphones...



This next section is my FAVOURITE find of the whole trip. I really should have made it into another blog post, but I wanted everyone to see it NOW. :)

Like, my boat has been floated. My fancy has been tickled. My cookies have been frosted.

There is a little sculpture garden on the grounds. When I saw it from across a meadow, it's like light was shining down from the heavens in one of those God paintings. I fancy myself an artist, and it would be my dream to create something like this. In my backyard.








The main gazebo-esque sculpture was made mostly out of glass bottles and mosiacs. AMAZING looking. From the outside of it, you could see all the bottle bottoms.



You could see something different from every angle that you looked at it. I could have spent a couple of hours finding new things to see in the patterns.






And from the inside, you could see all the bottlenecks. This picture is simple, but probably one of my faves of the day.


Aunt Jemima bottle family...almost looks like it has a religious connotation. Or maybe it doesn't, and I need to work out some issues with a psychiatrist.















WOW. :)

We ended the visit with a stroll on a long pier they had out over the water. People were floating by in their yachts...it was so beautiful.





Hope you enjoyed my little tour. Sorry I had to cram so much into one post...I felt like if I didn't do it today, I'd never get to it. :D

Wilmington, North Carolina ~ Part Un

One of the things I've done over the last busy week was take some time to go on a date with my husband. We've been together for over 5 years, but I think dates are still important!


We took the whole Saturday to go down to Wilmington, which is about an hour south of us on the coast. Wilmington is a beautiful city, and has something for everyone. 18th Century houses, beautiful beaches, awesome restaurants...everything Jacksonville doesn't have.

You can't go just anywhere and have a horse dressed as a bunny pull your carriage on Easter weekend!




We saw so much and took so many beautiful pictures, this'll have to be a two parter. Hell, I took so many, it may turn out to be a three parter! O_O


Like I said in my last post, I've been trying to be more active, so we fit some fun excercise into the day. First stop was to play frisbee in the Hugh MaCrae Park. The park has such pretty landscaping, so of course I took some pictures! Thank god there are none of me sweating with the frisbee...

The camellias here are just about done blooming, but this one was still pretty.


I'm a sucker for a retaining wall...


The azaleas are starting to bloom out everywhere. In fact, Wilmington's annual Azalea Festival is being held this upcoming weekend. I really wanted to go, people open up their historical houses and gardens to the public for tours!

But my brother in law is coming to visit this weekend, he hasn't been here in years. I'm taking a garden bullet for you Steve!!

Maybe I can talk them into taking me down there anyway, and I can drop them off in the pub all afternoon while I go out touring....hmm... :)


Some of my favourite azaleas of the day:






There's no Newcastle Brown in there, Mr. A!



The dogwoods are also in full bloom. I'd love to have one of these. They're very short lived trees though, and prone to disease.



From the look of this tree, I'd say it's a cherry. Look at the trunkage on this thing!


This is only one small part of MaCrae Park. I just think it was so pretty :) Most of the park is just pines. There are giant Koi in that lake. Huge! I'm surprised one of them didn't flip out of the water dolphin-style and snag that kid!


Some turtles chillin' like villains on the only island in the pond. Maybe they're afraid of the Koi too.



Cool Japanese Maple. Which I had to get in front of, of course.


Ham alert.


Eastern Redbud, I presume?


Very weird duck. I've heard of Turducken before, but this is ridiculous.


Some more of his homies resting in between tourist feedings. They didn't even have the decency to look scared when I got close to take a picture.


Lovely place. Couldn't play frisbee for long though, it kills me! I have bruises all over my shins, and my fingernails got shredded. I'm not a girly-girl, but c'man! Enough was enough!


Mr. A and I went for a pint in the Grand Union Pub, and had some fish & chips. Yes! There is an abundance of delicious seafood here in the coast, but no one's really done an 'authentic' fish & chips. Grand Union's were AWESOME. Ok, not really authentic, we weren't eating them out of paper or anything. But so tasty!

Usually when you see a place advertised as a 'pub' down here, it's a murky establishment with one pool table and a fat hillbilly behind the bar serving Budweiser in a pint glass. I always back out of the 'pub' slowly...no sudden movements...


After lunch, what did Mr. A treat me to? A visit to the 'Airlie Botanical Gardens'.

Beautiful! Amazing! Astounding!

Unfortunately, you'll have to wait for the pictures :) No time to post them tonight. But be on the lookout tomorrow!

Today was the tepid appetizer. Tomorrow? The filet mignon!!

Juggling

I'm so sorry everyone, life is getting in the way of my blog this week :D

I've been working my butt off...like literally. Now I have to carry it in my purse. One of my friends calls Barnes & Noble 'Barnes & Shenanigans'. I could write a whole blog based on the crazy people that come in there every day...I'd probably get fired though?

And I'm trying to lose some weight (and it's successful so far), which takes up an hour of my day every day.

AND my camera is being stupid, so it's hard to get my pictures on here to supplement the witty banter. I'm hoping to get a new post up tonight or tomorrow. I know you're all chomping at the bit! ;)

Mr. A and I did visit some beautiful gardens in Wilmington, NC over last weekend. I can't wait to share those pictures :)

Saw my first hummingbird at the feeder yesterday as well. I'm glad I put it up, I thought it was too early in this area!

Once again, apologies. Hope no one thought I died lol.

Dump and Die

Our neighbourhood has had enough.



I live in a rural area. We're about 5 minutes away by car from a small town called Swansboro.

We're about 20 minutes away from a small city called Jacksonville. We're definitely rural. I live next to trailers with toilets and pig cookers sitting in the front yard. Redneck central. Usually I don't care, it gives me something to blog about.





But...being rural DOES NOT give people the right to back their trucks down our road and dump their trash in our ditches.

People who are too CHEAP and too LAZY to take their trash to the Onslow County dump on the other side of Jacksonville. To dump it there for a few measly dollars. Is that really HARD? Is it???

Trash = many things.

Rocking chairs...



Barbeque grills....




And make sure lamp/magazine stands aren't left out...



Those three things have been dumped down that road all in the span of
three weeks. Within a few feet of each other.

Mr. A and I did not nail that sign to the tree. But we APPLAUD the people that did. Some people have no respect for the people living in this area. We're a new-ish subdivision, and house building is really starting to boom back here. When I first moved here, all that was dumped were beer cans and condoms/condom wrappers. People have decided to upgrade I guess. No more condoms, only grills!

I had seen this sign posted yesterday when I was taking a daily walk. Mr. A and I jumped in the car tonight so I could show him and take some pictures. There were some people walking down where the trash had been dumped, and they looked at us like we were the dumpers!

Mr. A said that we should let the people who were walking know that we weren't responsible, and I didn't want to because I thought that was silly. But I ended up saying ok, and we drive down after the walkers.We came upon them, and explained ourselves. Thanks goodness we did! They said they were going to take our license plate tag numbers and report us, because they thought we were the dumpers! LOL

I love my house, and I love my yard. I just wish they were in a different place :P

There are bombs and guns going off on the nearby Camp Lejeune Marine base. There are people spotlighting deer on the side of the road so they can shoot them when they're dazzled. There are people running deer dogs through the woods to drive the deer out, so the 'hunters' can shoot them.

I'm tired of it.

I say, leave my bit of home alone!

Pretty in Pink

I totally would have picked Duckie over Blane. After a dance like this? I would have married the the guy on the spot. Epic fail, Molly Ringwald, epic fail.



The blooming of my 'Ann' Magnolia is one of my favourite parts of the spring. Ok, ok, every part of spring is my favourite part.

But come on! Get a load of this:



I really wish I had planted this shrub in a different spot. I think it gets a leetle too much sun. The leaves get a bit crispy if we have a long heat wave in summer...but it's not too bad if I water a lot.

And it almost looks like one of those little cacti that you see in the checkout line at Lowe's. A green finger with one, huge, fluorescent-coloured bloom on the top of it. The same flower bud on 'Ann' always blooms first, and always blooms the biggest. There are a few other blooms, but they're always smaller and less impressive.

'Ann' is such a slow grower that it'll take forever to get to it's full size. Which, according to the plant tag, will only be about 8ft x 8ft.

Jess @ Children of the Corm is convinced all plant tags lie though, so we'll see. Or maybe I won't...I'll probably be living somewhere else by then!

'Ello, Guvnah!

The Governor of North Kynalina has granted a 'stay of execution'.





I have decided that the 'Blackout' asiatic lilies will not walk the Green Mile. They will not buy the farm, bite the dust, kick the bucket, nor take a dirt nap!



I have to redo this part of my back garden, which hasn't really been touched since Mr. A ripped down the old fencing and edging.



I found I don't really care as much about the colours back there. And I won't break some of my readers' hearts by killing them ;).It's far enough away from the house that they're not under my nose.

...But they'll be under the bees' noses!


Do bees have noses?

I'm happy to see those fellas flying around, noses or not.