We’ve progressed quite a bit with the Guest Favorites Garden since we last updated you in August of 2014. As many of our blog readers know, we created a new garden space (Innkeeper Brigette just can’t stop), dedicated to plants/flowers that our guests love.
This month, we have been fortunate to see a Green Heron on the pond at the Inn on Mill Creek B&B. This is the first year that we’ve seen one, although that doesn’t mean they haven’t been here before…we just never noticed! So now that we have taken notice, this beautiful bird is getting the May 2015 spot in our 12 Months of Birding at the Inn series on the blog.
Most people think of Biltmore House when they think of Biltmore Estate, but the gardens are magnificent and well worth spending some time exploring. Acres and acres of gardens, including formal gardens, park-like gardens spaces, and a beautiful azalea garden are all part of the grounds.
While the Asheville area is known for natural beauty — hiking trails, waterfalls, the Blue Ridge Parkway — it is equally known for its superb arts culture. Asheville is recognized annually for its art and craft on various “top ten” lists.
If you’re looking for a springtime day trip while you’re staying in the North Carolina mountains, and want to see some of the area’s truly photogenic scenery, check out Crabtree Falls. This wildflower and waterfall hike is north of Asheville, off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Milepost 339, between Mt. Mitchell State Park and Little Switzerland.
Starting in the springtime, usually by late April, you’ll start hearing the Red-eyed Vireos at the Inn on Mill Creek B&B singing a lovely song of gently slurred notes, with phrases ending in an up-note or a down-note, making it sound like the bird is sweetly tweeting a short question and answering it. Over and over, and over and over.
The Pioneer Day festival in our town of Old Fort, NC, celebrates the spirit and ingenuity of American pioneers who lived in the mountains prior to and after the Revolutionary War, when our nation was just getting going.
It’s Spring, which means it’s time for the annual celebration at Biltmore Estate known as Biltmore Blooms. Biltmore, located in Asheville, NC, is an 8,000-acre estate owned by descendents of George Washington Vanderbilt. And much of the estate grounds is like a big nature park, allowing for visitors to meander along different pathways, surrounded by spring-blooming shrubs and flowers.
Warblers and vireos and buntings, oh my! Birding enthusiasts and nature lovers, bring your binoculars and join us for the Blue Ridge Mountains spring migration birding weekend coming up on May 8-10, 2015, hosted by the Inn on Mill Creek B&B, a site on the North Carolina Birding Trail, Mountains Region.
| Eastern Whip-poor-will [photo credit: National Audubon Society] |
Many evenings during the week in May and June, at precisely 9pm (OK, maybe not precisely…sometimes at 9:04pm), guests of the Inn on Mill Creek B&B and North Carolina Birding Trail site are treated to short symphony by the Eastern Whip-poor-wills. Since it is a May mainstay in our neck of the woods, we’re bestowing the Whip-poor-will with the honor of being our May 2014 bird in our 12 Months of Birding at the Inn series on the blog.
