A fig to give
by Tony Avent When most folks decide to grow a fig, they opt for something like brown turkey fig, or at least something relatively edible. Me, I’m more interested in the ornamental figs – all members of the plant genus…
Category: Home & Garden
Pretty is as pretty does
by Jesma Reynolds photographs by Catherine Nguyen A self-professed serial renovator, Carole Marcotte has breathed life into her family’s Spanish Colonial in Hayes Barton. Carole Marcotte gets a thrill out of solving design problems. With the precision of a mathematician…
Q&A with Local Design Personalities
Walter asked seven Triangle-area interior designers and architects with varied design sensibilities to share some of their favorite things. Your design philosophy? “My philosophy is to keep things classic, simple, and timeless.” –Rodolfo Gonzales of Rodolfo Gonzales Interior Design in…
Simple form, ample space…and art
photographs by Nick Pironio When North Carolina Museum of Art director Larry Wheeler told Walter last winter how excited he was about the latest renovation on his ’60s-era modernist house in Chapel Hill, the work had barely begun. A visit…
Pig butt arum
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson It’s not until you come face-to-face – or perhaps I should say nose-to-nose – with a pig butt arum that you realize it isn’t a grand horticultural April Fool’s prank. Indeed, I…
A lily for the ages
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson Since just before the war between the States, crinum lilies have been a popular staple in rural gardens throughout the deep Southeast – a far distance from their mostly native African origins….
The world of vanCollier
The hospital’s second floor – which once housed patients, a delivery room, and a nurses’ station – became home. by Liza Roberts photographs by Catherine Nguyen It takes a visionary to dream up things that don’t exist and make them real. It…
In the Arboretum
by Gibbons Ruark We walked the balmy path decades ago That now we walk again this afternoon. Too soon to say the spring is gone, too soon. The Carolina Wren says this is so.
The Sun King
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson I’ve long been fascinated with the genus Aralia, beginning with my love of house plants as a young child. A few years later, I met the native “devil’s walking stick,” Aralia spinosa, in…
Wabi-sabi
by Liza Roberts photographs by Nick Pironio Donna and Jim Belt believe in wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept of beauty that celebrates imperfection. When the former Tokyo residents moved into a downtown Raleigh condo, they combined earthiness with refinement, symmetry with…
Lake living
by Jessie Ammons photographs by Lissa Gotwals Summertime childhood memories for me are all about the lake. Growing up just north of Raleigh, as soon as the weekend rolled around, we were off to Lake Gaston, an hour away but a…
Nothoscordum sellowianum
by Tony Avent I’ve grown many bulbs in my gardening life, but rarely has any plant enchanted me like the miniature Nothoscordum sellowianum. My love affair started in 1995 as I perused one of the obscure botanical journals (which qualify…
Attention getter
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson Who doesn’t know scheffleras? Whether you’ve abused them as houseplants or strolled underneath them at your favorite Florida theme park, most of us have had a personal experience with scheffleras. Scheffleras are members of the…
Evita!
by Tony Avent Gesneriads have long been a personal favorite of mine, starting from my days growing and selling African violets (a member of that family) as a young teenager. Like any addiction, African violets led me too other gesneriads:…