Hidden Hills Garden

I’m doing a series of blog posts about Dan’s Amazing Alabama Adventure, which is the story of when Dan Heims, President of Terra Nova Nurseries, visited me. This post concentrates on the morning we spent at Huntsville Botanical Garden (HBG). I’m working on an article about HBG, and sometimes writing a blog post helps me organize my thoughts. HBG was originally going to be one paragraph in an article about Dan’s visit, but I was so impressed by what’s going on there, and I so loved all the stories, that I decided it should be a stand-alone article for the February issue of Alabama Gardener magazine. I have more than enough material, but I’m not sure how I want to organize the article, so I’m going to recap the day in hopes that it helps me.

When we arrived at HBG there was already a group waiting to greet us. Standing outside was Paula Steigerwald, President & CEO; Harvey Cotton, former Vice President; and Niki Sothers, Director of Horticulture. We watched a short film about the new guest center that is under construction. I’m so excited to see it when it’s finished in spring of 2017! Paula told us that previously HBG had a different plan for the new building, but they wanted more “WOW!” so they scrapped the first plan and started over. I’m certain it was an excellent decision because what they are building now is going to be amazing!

We headed into the garden, and Harvey told us a story that is going in the article. It happened in the early years of the garden. There was a man who volunteered for years on a regular basis. It was only after the bonsai society built the garden with the miniature railroad that the man brought his grandson to the garden for the first time. That event inspired the garden to add more kid-friendly attractions.

From the bonsai garden, we loaded into a long golf cart. We drove by the new guest center that’s under construction. I commented that it still had a long way to go, and I asked if it was really going to be finished by spring. Paula said that her daughter is getting married this spring, and the wedding will be in the new building. She said it in such a matter-of-fact way that I believe her, and I feel sorry for any construction worker who slows progress. Do not mess with a determined mother-of-the-bride!

I’m certain that the visitor’s center is further along now, but this is what it looked like on September 14, 2016.

We drove around the children’s garden and entered the butterfly house.

From left to right is Niki, Dan, Paula and Harvey.

Here I learned that Paula is a turtle-whisperer. She can pat the water and call the turtles to her.

No one else has permission to do this, only Paula. If you visit HBG, DO NOT touch the turtles.

The flowers in this picture are pentas, and butterflies love them.

The fern garden has 150 – 170 species and cultivars, about half are natives.

Paula entertained us with stories about the garden’s wonderful volunteers and how they contributed to the garden’s growth. I heard about the Vernon Bush azalea trail and the Herb Lewis birding trail. My favorite story was about Harold Holmes and HBG’s trillium collection. You are going to have to get a copy of the magazine if you want to hear that story.

Harold and Vernon were both volunteering on the day we visited. They gave us a tour of the propagation areas. Dan and Harvey went with Harold to see the trillium seedlings, while Vernon showed Paula and me the native azaleas. Dan loves spending time with fellow plant nerds and said that was his favorite part of the day.

Vernon shows Paula some seedlings.

After the tour, we all had lunch and Paula asked if we had any advice for HBG. Dan considered the question for several moments and said, “Be unique.” Good advice, but I think they have that covered. We saw example after example of unusual stuff.

This bottle tree at Huntsville Botanical Garden is the largest bottle tree in any public garden.

A lot of missile defense work goes on in Huntsville. That is an actual unarmed Patriot missile. You don’t see that every day.

I’ve thought about using ‘Be unique’ as the theme for the article, but I just don’t know yet. I know that I want to say that volunteers founded the garden in a grassroots effort. I’m going to tell the stories about how the garden grew. And I’ll talk about where it is heading. I want to make the new guest center sound so exciting that people will want to contribute money, even if it’s only a small amount, because if they do, when they walk into the new guest center this spring, they’ll feel proud that they helped. I know that I will.

This blog post may not be inspiring, but it has helped me sort my thoughts. Here’s a link to more information about the new Guest Center and how you can contribute. If you want to see how the article turns out, pick up a copy of the February 2017 issue of Alabama Gardener magazine and flip to the back page.

I’m planning the most awesome gardening vacation you can have in North Alabama. If you read Alabama Gardener magazine, you may remember the article I wrote titled, ‘Peggy’s Big Adventure.’ It was about my trip to California with Dan Heims, President of Terra Nova Nurseries, and how traveling with one of the kings of horticulture opened doors that are usually closed to lowly garden writers like me.

Well, Dan is coming to visit. He’s spending five days with me before we go to Atlanta for the GWA conference. If you know me, you know I’m a wee bit competitive. Dan planned the last vacation, and he might think we got VIP treatment on his vacation, but he hasn’t been on my vacation yet. I’m not a queen of horticulture, but I’m writing an article about this vacation, and so by the power of the press, I have opened all the horticultural doors that I could.

I want the article to have a little ‘you can do this, but not the way Dan and I did it’ vibe. For instance, you can go to the Huntsville Botanical Garden, but you’re not getting a private tour from a person whose name I don’t want to say because it’s a surprise. You can go to the Donald E. Davis arboretum, but Patrick isn’t going to show you around and then spend the rest of the day with you, as you do even more fun things that other people cannot do. And you can shop at Petals from the Past, but only if you get there before 5 p.m. You can’t call the owner, Jason, on his cell phone, tell him you are running late and ask him to stick around and wait. – I already have that lined up.

The vacation starts with a trip to the Donald E. Davis arboretum. I chose it because it’s as if all of Alabama’s horticulture was boiled down into one garden. On one end of the garden are the native plants found in North Alabama, the other end of the garden is planted with Alabama Gulf Coast natives, and what’s in-between is in-between. – Hopefully, I will come up with a better way to describe it before I write the article. – I was there last spring and took all these pictures.

Patrick discusses some of our native carnivorous plants.

Pitcher Plants

Native azaleas

Native wildflowers

I liked how some of the signs gave a lot of information.

Elliott’s Blueberry

False Rosemary

It should be a fun article because it’s going to be an amazing vacation! Take a look at where we’re going.

If you’re curious about the California vacation that Dan planned, I wrote a series of blog posts about the trip, starting with one titled, ‘What’s in Peggy’s Suitcase?‘

This is the only picture in this post that’s from my garden. It’s the ginger (Hedychium gardenarianum) that Dan encouraged me to buy, and I brought it back from California in my suitcase. It’s blooming now, and it smells fabulous!

If you want to see the article that I wrote about the California trip, you can call Alabama Gardener magazine at 888-265-3600 and order the July/Aug. 2015 issue. It really was a cute article, even if I do say so myself, but the next article might be even better!

I really should post more often. I was at Longwood Gardens back in the spring, and I would have posted about it earlier, but I’ve been busy. I accepted two board member positions in 2016, Secretary of Smith Lake Environmental Preservation Society and Vice President of Membership for UAB Toastmasters. As VP of membership, I want to invite you to come to our next meeting. We meet the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month from 5:45 to 7 p.m. in room 170 of the Bevill Research Building, located at 845 19th St. South, Birmingham. It’s really fun!

I’m enjoying Toastmasters, and it’s making me a better speaker, which is why I joined, but there’s another, unexpected benefit. It’s making me a better writer. I turned my back-page article ‘Do Whatever You Want’ into a speech and in rehearsing it, I rewrote it and improved it. I’ve also learned a few tricks about how to write a speech that apply equally well to writing an article.

As you work your way through the Toastmasters’ book, each speech focuses on a different skill. I recently gave my 5^th speech, which focuses on gestures. I love the speech so much that I’m doing something I rarely do, I’m not going to talk about gardening in this post except for one short caption, instead, I’m posting my speech at the end. It’s not because I didn’t like Longwood Gardens. I enjoyed them immensely. The greenhouses were especially nice. It’s just that sometimes pictures are enough. Think your own gardening thoughts in your own heads. I want to share my speech. The main story has been on this blog before, but I reworded it, and there’s new stuff before and after. Besides, it’s never too early to start promoting my new book.

My favorite part of Longwood was the conservatory, and thank goodness I had to use the bathroom or I would have missed this hallway. I’ve seen pictures of this before, but I didn’t realize these are the bathrooms in Longwood’s conservatory. How cool is that?

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The Book I’m Writing

I’m writing a book. If you know me, you probably assume it’s about gardening. It’s not. It’s a book of advice for young women, and I want to write it for three reasons. 1 – After living for 55 years, I’ve learned a thing or two, and I want to share my wisdom. 2 – Young women need my advice. Most young women are stupid. I know. I was stupid too. We were all stupid when we were young. 3 – Even after I’m dead and buried, this book will continue my good work and lecture my girls for me. That is very important.

The title is, ‘Stand up, put your hands on your hips, and…’ “Stand up” means stand tall; be proud; be strong. “Put your hands on your hips” means never be intimidated; feel your power, and be confident. The last part of the title, “and…”? Well, that depends on the situation.

The title comes from one of my favorite stories. It was July 4th weekend of 2014. My husband, Dale, and I were hosting three other couples, some of their children and the children’s boyfriends/girlfriends at our lake house. Only a few of us were on the dock to witness the first part of my story. One of the World Cup soccer games was about to start, so twenty-something-year-old Dustin told his girlfriend, Ally, “We need to go up to the house and watch the game.” As Ally was gathering her things, Dustin barked, “Hurry up!”

After they left, my friend Bill turned to me and said, “I don’t like the way he talked to her.” I’d been thinking the same thing. I heartily agreed and explained how I would have handled the situation. He told me that I should give her my advice.

As luck would have it, Ally forgot something on the dock and showed up ten minutes later without Dustin. Bill started doing the little head nod towards Ally while looking at me thing. So I said, “Ally, it’s not any of my business, but you shouldn’t let Dustin talk to you like that. Next time he uses that tone and tells you to hurry up, this is what you should do: stand up, put your hands on your hips and say, ‘I’ll come when I’m Fucking ready!’” Ally answered, “Oh Ms. Hill, I don’t think I could say that.” I replied with great conviction and emphasis, “Oh yes you can!”

The next day I came down to the dock later than everyone else. Most people were off on the boat, but Bill and my husband, Dale, were there swimming in the water. As I got closer, I saw enormous grins on their faces. I asked what happened. Bill said, “You would be so proud of Ally. Dustin yelled at her when they were leaving. She flipped him off and said, ‘Don’t talk to me like that.’”  –  I was proud.

Looking back at the whole situation, when I gave Ally my advice, I probably should have mentioned that if my approach seemed too harsh, she could have discussed Dustin’s behavior with him in private. Either way, the important thing is not to let him treat her that way. I will make that clear in the book. I’ll also emphasize that this is only an acceptable response to shitty behavior from a significant other. With other people, unless it borders on abuse when they act shitily, be the bigger person; ignore it. For instance, as a gracious hostess, if Dustin had said something rude like, “Why are you still at the lake? Shouldn’t you be cooking dinner? I’m hungry.” I would have answered sweetly, “Dinner’s going to be a while. Why don’t you run up to the house and get a snack? And if you want to speed things up, you can start peeling those potatoes on the counter.”

Yes, it’ll be a fabulous book I can almost see the cover now, ‘Stand up. Put Your Hands on Your Hips and…’ by Peggy Hill and Monica Buergler. I almost forgot to tell you that I’m coauthoring the book with my mom. She died years ago, but I still have her voice in my head, and I still have her letters. I’m talking about solid-gold advice that young women need to hear. For instance, the book includes the sage words she wrote in the months leading up to my wedding.

“Incidentally, are you going to promise to love, honor and obey? If you do, be sure to have your fingers crossed. That OBEY BUSINESS is out. I told Dad that if it was in our ceremony when we married, I wouldn’t make a fuss, but he could just forget that stuff. I hate having somebody boss me around. Enough nonsense. Oh yes, the rest is ok. Love and honor I mean.”

Who wouldn’t want to read fabulous advice like that? The book is mom’s advice to me mixed with my advice to anyone who wants to listen. The more I work on this book, the more excited I get. It’s going to be great. It might even wind up on the best seller list.

I’ll tell you about Chanticleer garden in a minute, but I love this story about what happened last week.

I’m going to do a radio interview on July 3^rd on the talk show Garden America. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I have exciting news, I want to share. One of the first people I called was my BFF Trace. He recently became The Bitter Socialite, and now he’s a big deal. When I wrote the article about him for the May 2016 issue of Alabama Gardener magazine, he was on one TV station. Now he’s on four stations in three cities. Trace didn’t answer the phone, so I sent him this text, “Has anyone ever asked you to do a radio interview?…….I didn’t think so.” – Like I said, Trace is my BFF, so I give him shit all the time.

Shortly after that, I was telling my daughter Monica about my radio interview and my text to Trace. She said, “You know exactly how Trace will respond. He’ll say, ‘Radio is for people who aren’t pretty enough to be on television.’” Monica knows Trace very well. That is precisely what he would say. I asked Monica what my response should be. She thought for a few seconds and said, “Radio is what people who have jobs listen to on their way to work. Morning television shows are what unemployed people watch while they shop at Walmart.”

I don’t want to insult fans of morning television, but Monica makes me laugh! Now let me tell you about Chanticleer.

My husband Dale gave me the most wonderful birthday present this year. He took me to Pennsylvania for a long weekend, and I spent an entire day at Chanticleer garden. It was amazing!!! I have many wonderful pictures, but they don’t compare with the experience of being in the space. Every time I turned a corner, my first thought was, ‘OH MY GOD! This is unbelievable!’

Both bathrooms had fresh flowers, cut from the garden. It’s a nice extra touch.

Picked from a nearby area in the garden.

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From here to the end of this post, all the pictures were taken in the Teacup Garden. One of the nice things about Chanticleer is that although none of the plants are labeled, they have a plant list for each area. Here’s a link for the list of plants used in the Teacup Garden.

The entrance to the teacup garden.

I love this combination of cast iron plant and Sambucus ‘Lemony Lace’.

I posted more pictures of Chanticleer on the blog I write for Alabama Gardener magazine. Here’s a link.

A HUGE thank you to Dale for taking me there. It made me happy, and it’s going to be a hard present to beat, but if you want a suggestion, here’s a link to Monet’s garden. Hahaha!!! Another idea is to simply take me back to Chanticleer. I’m certain that it changes from year to year and season to season.