The Lake Junaluska Fall Plant Sale will be held from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, Sept. 7, at the Nanci Weldon Memorial Gym at Lake Junaluska. 

Writing these columns for the last couple of years has brought me so much joy that I have decided to celebrate by changing the name of my writings to The Joyful Botanist. And nothing says launching a new name than launching a revolution while you’re at it. So, let’s start a revolution! 

Dear reader, yeah, I mean you. You who are reading this while holding the paper in your hands or scanning through on your computer, tablet or phone. Yeah, you. I am so deeply grateful to you for reading my articles. This marks the 52nd column that I have written for The Smoky Mountain News, with one running every couple of weeks for the last two years or so. That’s one for each week in the year. One for every card in a deck.  

There are a few native plants whose names I call out loud like a prayer whenever I see them. This is especially true since the crazy times of the global pandemic and resulting shutdown. One of those is the whorled loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia) whose name I slowly pronounce out loud as a benediction, “world, lose strife.” And I mean it. 

Come out to Waynesville for the Mountain View Garden Club plant sale from 9 a.m. to noon July 6 at the Haywood County Farmers’s Market by the HART theater. 

Our culture tends to celebrate youth and youthfulness above all other life phases. Growth and vitality are venerated over age and wisdom. This wasn’t always the case.

Come out to the Macon County Master Gardener Association’s plant sale. 

I wear a few different hats in my world. A big straw hat for working in the garden or walking out in the sun. Wool caps and toboggans for the colder mornings of spring. Party hats for the celebrations. I’ve even been known to wear a tricorne hat when visiting Colonial Williamsburg as a kid. 

On Sunday, May 5, in cooperation with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the North Shore Cemetery Association will decorate the Woody and Hoyle Cemeteries on Forney Creek.  

Spring has fully sprung across Southern Appalachia, as we are awakened daily to birdsong and the bustling morning activity of bees and butterflies.