Garden volunteers visiting from JC Raulston Arboretum

It's always great to have gardeners visiting the Garden, and this was a special group.

I hosted a group of volunteers from the JC Raulston Arboretum at NC State in Raleigh this morning, showing them as many highlights as I could fit in -- in a couple of hours --a challenge more than ever. 

The Upstate visit, orchestrated by Marian St. Clair (Garden columnist at the Greenville News and SC Master Gardener) and Beth Jimenez (of the JC Raulston volunteers) included visits to private gardens in Greenville, nursery visits in Greenville and Seneca, the visit to SCBG, and a special tour of Chuck and Betty Cruickshank's personal garden in Clemson  (Chuck shared the story of the SCBG Hosta Garden with us on site).

The Garden is alive with colors of green in spring - this has been a wonderful spring for natives and ornamentals alike. 

More trilliums than I've ever seen before were in flower, and later today, SCBG Director Patrick McMillan showed me a Silene polypetala in full flower that's just appeared in the Woodland Wildflower Garden. 

Silene polypetala flower (P. McMillan)

None of us has ever seen this plant in flower there before -- nor do we know its origin -- but some combination of good conditions has supported the flowering of this rare Georgia native in our Garden!