James &amp; Monique&#39;s RV Travels

We met a nice lady who had been camping here for a month. She told us about Hagood Mill in Pickens, SC, which is about 40 miles from the campground. We wanted to look around the Pickens area, so we drove over to tour the mill and the Pickens County Museum. Both are well worth a visit.

Hagood Mill is a grist mill built around 1845. It operated commercially until 1966 and is now a branch of the Pickens County Museum.

Several other buildings have been relocated to the site including two log cabins. The first one below dates from 1791.

There is also a steam operated 1890 Cotton Gin.

Plus a visitor’s center and gift shop, blacksmith shop, simulated moonshine still, and an outdoor stage.

Of course I had to photograph some of the pretty flowers.

I still had some wildflower seeds left from our trip to the Vermont Wildflower Farm. I gave these to the gentleman at the visitor's center. He was happy to get them and promised to plant them. They should look nice in this setting.

Another interesting artifact was a soapstone rock where early American Indians had started carving rock bowls. You can seem the beginnings of the bowl shapes in the rock.

Every 3rd Saturday of the month, the mill operates to grind corn or wheat. In addition 20-30 artisans come to demonstrate old time skills like blacksmithing, weaving, yarn spinning, basket weaving, making moonshine, etc. The cotton gin is also operated. Various local bluegrass and country musicians give performances on the outdoor stage. We were sorry we did not know about this event since we were here the 3rd Saturday in May. We plan to come back sometime to attend this monthly festival.

Carter & Holmes Orchids

We took an enjoyable day trip from the Barnyard RV Park to Carter & Holmes Orchids. This orchid nursery is about 3 miles outside Newberry, SC, which is about 40 miles north of Columbia.

Carter & Holmes is a small privately owned business. They have been growing orchids for 65 years starting right after WWII. They ship worldwide and have hundreds of varieties.

We were allowed to just wander through the greenhouses. We encountered delightful employees who stopped their work to explain how orchids are grown and what they were doing at the moment. This lady was in the process of selecting plants to be shipped to a man in Chile who is trying to establish the largest private collection of orchids in the world.

I was surprised to learn how hardy some varieties of orchids are, especially Phalaenopsis.

This is the variety you most often see for sale at places like Lowe’s or Publix in their flower sections. The blooms can last up to 4 months and do well in a typical household environment. They are an excellent plant if you have allergies since they produce no airborne pollen. Orchids depend upon bees, insects or hummingbirds for pollination. We bought a small one that had 3 blooms and 3 buds. You only water the plants every 4-5 days. After a few waterings over a couple of weeks all 3 buds had opened. All the blooms were still beautiful when we got ready to leave. We gave the plant to a lady in the front office of the RV park who has several other orchids at home. We were afraid we would damage the plant when packing or traveling down the road.

Carter & Holmes grows new plants from seeds or from tissue cuttings (clones). Each seed pod will produce 1,000 or so seeds. In the wild only a few will land in the right environment and survive. In the greenhouse, Carter & Holmes can germinate all 1,000. They also cross breed or hybridize new varieties. The man who does this stopped to show us 2 grains of pollen he had collected into a tiny glass vial. He was on the way to use it to pollenate with a different variety.

The seeds germinate and grow in these large vials for a year or more before being transplanted.

The plant we purchased was in a small 3” pot and was about 3 years old. Carter & Holmes has orchids with a wide variety of ages. The oldest was collected in the jungles of Columbia, South America in 1888.

If you are in the area, Carter & Holmes is well worth a visit. You might become “hooked” and want to bring a few orchids home to enjoy.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

10-09 NC Arboretum

We left Salt Lick and had a long day's drive to Hendersonville, NC. The trip was about 290 miles, about 40 miles more than we like to travel in a day. Plus it rained much of the way. Midway, the driver's side windshield wiper started tearing apart. So we made several stops looking for a replacement. We finally found what we needed at a Camping World in Knoxville. I need to remember to replace those things about once a year. These were about 18 months old.

It continued raining while in Hendersonville, but Tuesday cleared off. So we went to the NC Arboretum which is on the south side of Asheville, about 20 miles north of the Lakewood RV Resort where we were staying. We have visited the Arboretum before, and it is now a favorite stop when in the Asheville area. What better place to go see fall leaves than an arboretum. (Although we were about a week early for peak leaf color)

The NC Arboretum has some pretty flowers as well.

They have an area they call the "quilt" garden which they arrange like a patchwork quilt. They change the plants several times during the year to reflect the current season.

I always stop to photograph bees of flowers when I spot them.

One of the highlights is the outstanding Bonsai collection.

You can see fall leaves and color in miniature.

There is a large Bonsai display near the entrance parking lot. But additional Bonsai are in the greenhouses, which are down a pretty woodland walk from the main buildings. Be sure to visit them. (You can also drive to them.)

The greenhouses have some other plants and flowers like this Bird of Paradise.

Here is a view of the mountains along the woodland path to the greenhouses: