If you come through Spartanburg, check out Hatcher Garden & Woodland Preserve. It's not that big, so it doesn't take that long to tour, but has several picnic areas, so is a nice place to have lunch and only 2 miles off I-26 after taking I-26-East off I-85 (Follow I26-East about 5miles to the 3rd exit, Reidville Rd., S.C. 296), then you turn left, and it's 2.2 miles on the left. If you're taking 85 to Clemson, anyway, I see no reason to not make the little sidetrip and see where I spend some time volunteering. The only sad part is the streams aren't running right now as they're doing some water-garden renovation over the winter and I had a tour there Sunday and it looked nowhere near finished, but it's still nice, with winter jasmine, winter honeysuckle, Peggy Clarke flowering apricot and witch hazel all in bloom there right now (all four of those are in bloom in my yard, only about a 1.5 miles from Hatcher, right now, too, but only one of the four came from there, lol). I'll post the link to make it easier, if you're interested. Hope you enjoy your trip! Jeff Here is a link that might be useful: Hatcher Garden & Woodland Preserve

ah- my pluot died a while back! i've had trouble with the cherry/plum clan with them getting the drippy, gooey lesions (can't recall what that is right now). i don't remember which one i had- most likely one of the dark crosses since those are the ones i like when you can buy them at the store. i don't know what variety of plum we have - they were here when we bought the house. of the 3 (one of which was barely alive when we bought it) only 1 remains. the fruit is small and rosey pink/purple, with good flavor, but they are clingstone and the pit is half of the fruit. so i mostly use them to make a killer pancake syrup. i suspect they were considered ornamental, and the closest edible i've found online for resemblance is santa rosa. love the blooms' fragrance in spring, too. sorry i'm not more help!

I recommend the smothering/lasagne method too. I've done this before on areas of traditional lawn that I wanted to convert to native wildflower patches, and it works well. Then you could either direct-sow native wildflower seeds, or winter-sow the native seeds in containers and transplant them into your wildflower area (see post from Sue/Chemocurl above). Winter-sowing in containers helps prevent the seeds from being eaten or washed away over the fall and winter. I just started winter-sowing native seeds in containers & transplanting this past year and have been amazed how well it's worked so far. Seedlings are all growing nicely. Just keep in mind you may not get much flowering the first year from native perennials grown from seed. Also, if you winter-sow in containers, you will have to dig holes for the transplanted seedlings. Not always easy on the back or the knees... Whether you direct-sow or winter-sow in containers, those "wildflower mixes" from the bigger stores are notorious for containing non-native wildflower and non-native grass seeds. You might want to try purchasing the seeds of the native wildflowers you would like in individual packets. Some native wildflower seeds need a period of cold, moist stratification to germinate, so they are best direct-sown in the fall, or winter-sown in containers. Some will germinate best when sowed in the spring. Most native seed companies will tell you the best time of year to sow each kind of seed. I got my native seeds from Prairie Moon Nursery, and Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve in PA. North Carolina State University has info on growing natives on their website: http://www.ncsu.edu/goingnative/index.html If you're not sure what kind of seeds to get, check out the information sheets (see link below) from N.C. State University that you can download. These sheets list N.C. native plants and wildflowers and what kind of growing conditions they need. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: NC State University: Going Native

Personally, I just dont think that VB, or anywhere in that general area along the immediate cost is going to suffer that kind of super killing cold snap. The power of the ocean and the gulf stream is just too great. Even areas of the Chesapeake bay coast are suitable for naturalisation of S. Minors and R. Hystrix, as are areas of the large cities of the mid Atlantic. As I said, and Brooklyngreg has also apparently seen, they are naturalising in the DC area, and not just downtown. In fact, the windmill and the S. Minors and Needle palms in front of the Air and Space museum are doing SO well, and naturalising so much, that it appears ( based on what I saw last summer) that the flower/ seed stalks are now being removed, and there are literally hundreds of volunteers beneath all of these palms. There are now 3 needle palms in the national arboretum that I could count on my trip there last weekend, and it appears that two were offspring of the 50 year old palm, and have been moved to other areas. I do remember there were more than just the big one in the asian valley section, and now there is just the big one by itself again. at the very minimum, S. Minor and R. Hystrix already are ( and probably will) naturlise in the mid Atlantic & DC and quite possibly so will some Windmills. That said, I just dont think that Sabal Palmettos will ever be able to naturalise this far north / indland. Perhaps on the lower coastal areas of the delmarva peninsula but I dont seem them going much further than that. They just are not hardy enough IMHO. In very protected locations sure, they could survive, as does saw palmetto here, but just out in the open, probably not.