Archive, November 24, 2005
Local Couple Takes Lead in Restoration of Cone Estate Hydrangeas
Story by D. Smith
They had lived in the shadows for years, struggling to reach for the light. And with each passing season, their grandeur faded a bit more. By the time they were rediscovered, the thousand-flower garden that once lit the banks of Bass Lake with their blooms was all but lost from the landscape, and nearly lost from the memories of those who live nearby.
But now the hydrangeas are coming back, reemerging from the dark woods that have overgrown and engulfed them for the past 30 to 40 years.
It was an afternoon walk and an offhand remark that saved them.
“It started out as a bit of a quirk,” said Lowell Thomas, avid gardener, Blowing Rock resident, and friend of the hydrangea. One day after a Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation meeting with Virginia Foxx and Cass Ballinger, who met at Cone Manor to discuss projects along the Parkway, “Several of us went for a walk around the lake,” Lowell recalled.
“When someone pointed out the hydrangeas that had been there for years, but had been neglected, I just mentioned that it wouldn’t take a great deal of work to bring them back. And I said that if no one takes objection, I’ll be happy to do that,” he said
No one objected. Lowell and his wife Ineke, the experienced gardener in the family, “didn’t wait for a proclamation.” They started the project last November.
“You know what they say,” Lowell said, “It’s easier to get forgiveness than it is to get permission.”
In the beginning, the Thomases and the volunteers who sometimes joined them went gently, starting with the hydrangeas on the bank above the parking area.
“We were thinking, ‘this is something we can do,’ and we went on about the business of the work on the understory,” Lowell said.
From the patch behind the parking lot, 70 or 80 shrubs started to emerge. Another 15 or 20 reappeared in the traffic circle. Another 15 or 20 came out of the shadows by the entry path near the portajohn. And then more and more started to reappear as a result of their work.
“We pruned some and got the nod to do more,” he said. With the deadwood trimmed back and the competing understory removed, the hydrangeas kicked in. And the project blossomed.
Helping th project along, the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation provided a $10,000 endowment from funds provided by the sale of the Blue Ridge Parkway specialty tags. The foundation endowment enabled the Blue Ridge Parkway Historic Preservation crew to come in with equipment for the heavy lifting—removing the white pines that had invaded the garden along the right bank of the lake.
At this point, said Larry Hampton, National Park Service exhibit specialist and supervisor of the historic preservation crew, “A lot of the hydrangea are coming back, at least 80 percent. There were a lot hidden in there where we cut back the trees.” When the pines were cut, they revealed even more hydrangeas.
“We’ve cleared out the encroaching vegetation. We’re pruning the existing hydrangea; we’ll be mulching. We’re pretty much fully restoring it,” Hampton said.
Hampton explained that the nearly lost gardens are part of the landscape history of the Cone Estate. Judging from the size of the stumps, the gardens were likely planted in the 1920s or 1930s.
The gardens were said to be “something” in their day. “They were said to be very visible,” Ineke said. “They made a showy display from the porch of Cone Manor. I’m told there were about 1,200 in the whole area.”
Ineke continued, “The plants themselves are very resilient. What blooms they had were very small. Now they’ve come back. They’ve grown rather vigorously over the summer.”
“They’re showing some real signs of vitality,” Lowell said. “I would love to see them come on out and make a real statement.”
A display it must have been, with a full moon on a late summer night, looking down onto more than 1,000 hydrangeas blooming white, fringing the three lakes, tucked into hillsides against a backdrop of well-groomed fruiting orchards—orchards that due to funding and manpower shortages have become overgrown and neglected over the years.
It is a situation that many folks have noted and bemoaned, a situation that has not escaped the notice of the gardening Thomases, who are one tough couple to keep confined to one small garden plot, hydrangea or otherwise. Along with their ideas on how to generate continuing funding for the hydrangea project, they’ve considered the future of the orchards.
“I don’t see why those orchards couldn’t be leased to some orchardist who could re-establish them,” Lowell said, thinking aloud. “With the Dole processing plant coming to Gastonia, it would be a opportunity to really enhance the landscape. It could provide income for other projects at Cone Manor. How long does it take for apples to bear? Seven years? You’ve got to start somewhere.”
Lowell added, “I don’t know why some of us, locally, shouldn’t become the ‘burr under the saddle,’ he said. “ Personally, I’m prepared to do just that.”
Folks around town might be right on target when they ask the Thomases if they are trying to landscape the entire community. “They’ve started accusing us of trying to landscape the whole universe,” Thomas said.
And is that their ultimate intent? “Well,” he said, without much hesitancy at all, “Well…. I do have a couple of ideas.”
There’s a universe out there. It could use some extra hands. And so could the Thomases who are also working on a project to restore the perennial gardens along the old path along Main Street Downtown. If you are interesting in volunteering to help with the hydrangea project at Bass Lake or with other projects (in other parts of the universe yet to be announced), contact Ineke or Lowell Thomas at 828-295-9727.
Plus, you can show your support wherever you go with Blue Ridge Parkway specialty license tag, sometimes available at your sometimes local tag agency but always available through the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. Of the additional $30 fee charged for the Parkway tag, $20 is used by the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation to support “projects of lasting value” along the Parkway. The remaining $10 is used to support state roadside enchantments, like the wildflower program. For more information about the tags or the foundation, call 336-721-0260 or click to www.brpfoundation.org.
What Do You Know About the Blowing Rock Hydrangeas?
As the hydrangeas reemerge from the shadows, so do intriguing bits and pieces of their history—a history that is interwoven with the history of Blowing Rock and its people.
Were those gardens the original source of the cuttings for the numerous, now-ancient, gnarled bushes that bloom on the lawns and lanes of Blowing Rock today?
If so, would it be possible to trace them back to where they began, to follow how they passed from neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend?
Are they the source of the story that Blowing Rock was once called “The Hydrangea Capital of the South?”
Were they, or other gardens like them, the original inspiration for the annual Hydrangea Ball at the Blowing Rock Country Club?
How many generations of Blowing Rock kids have taken to the streets to sell dried hydrangea blossoms to the visitors who come in summer?
This year, the dried blossoms were sold to help aid the victims of Katrina. Have the blossoms ever been sold to help other victims of other disasters?
How many weddings have they graced? How many funerals? How inextricably does a landscape bind with the people who live on it?
If you know more about the history of the hydrangeas in Blowing Rock or at Bass Lake, drop us a note with “Hydrangea” in the subject line at info@highcountrynews.info, or if you like the old-fashioned way better, mail it to us at The Hydrangeas, High Country News, PO Box 152, Boone, N.C. 28607.
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