Montrose Gardens & Hillsborough

In historic Hillsborough, NC lies the estate that is the Montrose Gardens, a listed property in the National Register of Historic Places. Mid 19th Century, NC Governor William Alexander Graham and wife Susan began a nationally famous complex of gardens on the estate. In 1977, the current owners Nancy and Craufund Goodwin purchased the home, buildings and grounds and have expanded the gardens. A few years ago they established the Montrose Foundation Inc, a tax exempt organization that will sustain the gardens and buildings when they are no longer able.

Montrose Gardens includes several 19th century buildings, a rock garden, scree garden, acres of wooded land and plantings and many gardens. The land is set up so that throughout the year are interesting areas of plants and flowers blooming. Guided tours are to be had for a small fee by appointments on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. However, this past Saturday was one of a couple of times of year when the Gardens are open for free. No tours, but volunteers were walking around and available for identifying the more obscure plants (although this is one gnome that's not a garden gnome, most plants are unknown to me). It was a warm day but the temperatures were already beginning to drop for Autumn. No doubt, the extended period without rain affected the gardens and flowers some, but there were plenty of color and plants and flowers of all types to be enjoyed.

A favorite of mine is a Chinese Orange or commonly called "Flying Dragon". The small tree is made of twisted thorned branches and limbs. It stays green all year long though it drops its leaves for the winter, leaving a visually interesting cork-screw tree during the winter. During this time of the year, it is full of leaves and bearing fruit. I encountered this tree for the first time a couple of years back at JC Ralston Arboretum in Raleigh, NC. I found one for my own yard at a lawn & garden center in Clayton, though it is still of a smaller size and has yet to bear fruit for me. Montrose has several of these, all at nice large sizes and full of fruit during our visit. Small ones of a couple of different sizes were available to be bought afterwards and one went home with Mama Gnome.

One of the enjoyments of walking the gardens is that the caretakers have built wonderful gardens with color themes but also work with nature. A white garden may have a volunteer flower that blooms red, the odd flower sprouts and grows in gravel walkways. Likewise the family dog has no compunctions at dashing through flowerbeds in order to greet all visitors with the proper enthusiasm. One war with nature that is waged is with the deer population. Unseen but on the back side of the woods fences have been put up to prevent the deer from making midnight snacks of the various flowers. Considering the one camelia I have that the deer choose to eat while leaving the one next to it alone, I can sympathize.


If interested in the tours or being added to the mailing list in order to hear about the open days, write:
Montrose
P.O. Box 957
Hillsborough, NC 27278

or call: 919-732-7787

The Wooden Nickel: After walking the gardens and perusing the plants for sale, we headed to the downtown area for lunch. Historic Hillsborough has several good restaurants, art galleries, a wonderful chocolateur. My brother who couldn't make it recommended The Wooden Nickel for lunch, where they ate last time out. By appearances, it's just a little hole in the wall sports bar with prints of the pin-up paintings by Gil Elvgren.

The food was decent. Some of it standard bar food like burgers (though with Kobe beef). But, also with a couple of vegetarian choices such as a large vege burger. And the portions were decent too. The chief drawback was though there were about five people in the kitchen, the bartender was completely overworked having to handle the patrons sitting at the bar as well as all of the tables inside and the couple outside. So, each little request such as sweet & low for the non-sweetened iced tea took minutes to be fulfilled. Ice was almost completely melt by the time the sweeteners made it to the table.