A trip through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a beautiful, often nervous drive, as hundreds of thousands of tourists visit every year, and most do not know how to drive in the mountains. This is especially true trying to navigate winding mountain roads while looking at all of the long-range views. 

I love walking in the woods in springtime. Flowers begin to line the trail in late February, and by the first of April, only a fool would fail to notice the abundance and diversity of flowers surrounding them as they saunter through the forest. The first spring wildflowers are all small, blooming just above the ground. 

This helps these early flowers survive the ups and downs, highs and lows, freezes and thaws that define springtime.

Every year in early spring, I try to maintain some sense of normalcy and keep to regular schedules and rhythms of work and life. I try, but spring fever infects me each year, and I get caught up in the beautiful excitement of springtime. If this is a sickness, then I hope there’s no cure. 

Sometimes I have to leave Southern Appalachia in the springtime for work or family obligations. As much as I try not to, it does happen.

Many years ago, I was given great advice on how to take better photographs, especially of subjects like the wildflowers that I love. That advice was to get the image focused and framed well, and then to take in a long breath, hold it and slowly breathe out. At the end of the exhale, snap the picture. This is similar to the concept of Chi energy found in Asian philosophies and martial arts. 

I don’t know about y’all, but I’m getting excited for the return of wildflowers.  

In Southern Appalachia, we’ve had a real winter this season with long, extended cold snaps and a couple of good, region-wide snow and ice storms. Now we’re looking at a few weeks of warmer weather ahead, and in mid-February that means the emergence and bloom of the first of the spring wildflowers. 

When you see a plant growing, flowering and fruiting in a garden, field, forest or pot you’re only seeing a part and not the whole. Much of the plant exists below the ground in the soil in the form of roots. It’s common to think that half of the plant is aboveground — stems, flowers and leaves — and half is below the ground in the roots, but this is not true across the board. 

Plants grow in soil. It is plant roots that hold soil in the ground in fields and forests, and along creekbanks, streambanks and riverbanks. When floods come again — and they will — having plants like shrubs, trees and wildflowers growing along and up to the waterline will help ensure that the banks do not fail.

Winter has come to Southern Appalachia; the forests are mostly dormant, sleeping and saving energy for springtime and the return of growth and vitality. While it may appear that everything is slowed and in decline, just below the surface, life still flourishes. This quote from the mystic Iranian Sufi poet Rumi captures the flourish: “And don't think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It's quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.” 

The word home evokes images that go deeper than its definition “the place where one lives.” 

Home means more than a house or domicile. It speaks of a place you live, and also a place that lives within you. It can mean where you come from, a place you aspire to go or return to, and it can mean emotional connection to a living space, or land that you are connected to emotionally.

I think a lot about native plants. In fact, it is the subject of most everything I do, from the weekly wildflower walks I lead during the growing season, to the many classes, workshops and presentations I offer throughout the year. And I write about native plants in these columns that I produce twice a month. My focus is on plants that are native to the southern Appalachian Mountains and Western North Carolina.