| Biltmore Azaleas, early May 2014 |
We headed over to Biltmore Estate on May 6, to walk through the Azalea Garden and were treated to a beautiful sight, and of course, we had to share it with you. The Azalea Garden at Biltmore is in a park-like setting and sits below the formal Walled Garden. If you visit Biltmore in springtime, we recommend walking through the Walled Garden to the Conservatory:
| Last year’s Festival [photo credit: Painters Greenhouse Facebook Page] |
Since the Inn on Mill Creek Bed & Breakfast is getting a little herb garden makeover this year (more on that later this month), we are super excited about the 10th Annual Painters Greenhouse Herb Festival, the weekend of April 12-13, 2014. Painters Greenhouse is one of our favorite locally-owned nurseries, located near the Inn on Mill Creek, in Old Fort, NC.
| Hops drying [photo credit: Hop’n Blueberry Farm] |
Here’s an activity for those of you who dig agritourism and local farm tours and who want to get a behind-the-scenes look at hops production: Hop’n Blueberry Farm in Black Mountain, one of the first hop farms in the state of North Carolina, is offering one-hour specialty tours at 2pm every Saturday in April. The farm is about 20 minutes from the Inn on Mill Creek B&B.
With Spring just a week away, we’re daydreaming of warm breezes, verdant mountain vistas, wildflowers galore, spring songbirds and…well, we thought we’d go ahead and make a list of ten reasons to visit the mountains of Western North Carolina in springtime. What is there to see and do in Spring in the NC mountains?
| Azaleas usher in spring |
Springtime in the mountains of Western North Carolina… there’s nothing
quite like it. While we always suggest late April through the month of May as
the prime time in spring for maximizing your enjoyment of the area’s colorful flora and
fauna, the season really does magically kick off each year right around March
20, with daffodil and forsythia blooms, among some other early spring flowers.
And Biltmore helps out, too, with its Biltmore Blooms celebration.
Mother Nature, let’s do this. Twenty days and counting…crocuses are starting to open at the Inn!
| Black-throated Blue Warbler [Photo Credit: Joe Kegley] |
Heading through our “neighborhood” of Pisgah National Forest in the North Carolina mountains on its way to its winter abode in the Caribbean, the Black-throated Blue Warbler is a fairly common visitor to the Inn on Mill Creek B&B in the early fall. Thus, this beautiful songbird earns the September spot in our 2013 Birding at the Inn series on the blog.
| Our favorite rose bush at the Inn in bloom |
Spring is always beautiful in the North Carolina mountains, but this year, we’ve seen the mountains gradually wake up to Spring, which is different from the past two years when Spring sprung right out of the gate in mid-March and quickly headed into summer by May. Since springtime has been more normal this year, guests of the Inn on Mill Creek Bed & Breakfast have been thoroughly enjoying the weeks of vibrant green leaves on the trees and gradual blooms as springtime makes its way from our neck of the woods around Asheville and Black Mountain to higher elevations along the Blue Ridge Parkway nearby, just in time for the Parkway’s official opening this weekend.
This year at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, the tulips and azaleas are battling it out for everyone’s attention! We have never been to Biltmore — located 20 minutes from the Inn on Mill Creek — when the azaleas and tulips were in full bloom at the same time. Just, wow.
