Endless Blooms The extensive gardens that adorn the DuBose House Gardens at Meadowmont are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and date back to the 1930s, when the property was developed by David St. Pierre and Valinda Hill DuBose. Photo by Chapel Hill Garden Club   By Laurie Bazemore Luscious Gardens dot the region    Rudyard Kipling once wrote that the gardens of England "are not made by singing, 'Oh, how beautiful!' and sitting in the shade." If Kipling were around to visit the most well-known gardens in Durham and Chatham counties, he might have said the same about the labors required to maintain these sculpted settings.    The faunal finery at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, North Carolina Botanical Garden, gardens of Fearrington Village, and Witherspoon Rose Culture add nationally known sanctuaries of botanical study and horticultural design to the Triangle's wealth of research and cultural resources. Sarah P. Duke Gardens        Situated in the middle of Duke University's West Campus, the 55 landscaped acres of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens are a well-known destination to take in more than 800 species of southeastern native plants without the distraction of unleashed dogs or an unboundaried game of football. A posted list of visitor etiquette gently reminds visitors: "Duke Gardens is a living museum, not a park or playground."    Its bulb-rooted feast of perennials celebrates Duke School of Medicine Professor Dr. Frederic Hanes' early 20th-century desire for a display-oriented garden to showcase his beloved irises. Today, its staff promotes Duke Gardens as a diverse setting for both cultural and educational experiences.    In 2006, Duke Gardens received a Museum Assessment Program (MAP) two-year grant from the American Association of Museums to invest in native plant collections management. Last October, its Culberson Asiatic Arboretum hosted the dedication of the teahouse-styled Durham Toyama Sister Cities Pavilion, celebrating the two cities' 18-year relationship. Chapel Hill Garden Club offers tours of the area's luscious gardens, including this home at Pinehurst Drive at Meadowmont. Fronted by terraces with spring blooms and Japanese maples, it also features a broad curving lawn bordered by flowers extended by an expansive view of nearby Finley Golf Course. Behind this home at Waterford Place at The Oaks lies a sequence of garden rooms, featuring a frog fiddler and stone-bordered terraces overlooking a waterfall-fed pool framed in flowers. From an upper terrace at this home on Wicklow Place at The Oaks, the statue of a young girl overlooks an ornamental pool, while a sloping woodland expanse displays shade-loving trilliums, jack-in-the-pulpits, and native azaleas. Photos by Chapel Hill Garden Club    "(Duke Gardens) should not be recognized as just a pretty place," notes Greg Nace, director of horticultural operations. "We want to meet the standards of a nationally recognized learning environment." North Carolina Botanical Garden    Similar to Duke Gardens, the North Carolina Botanical Garden (NCBG) promotes stewardship of natural areas as a conservation-driven, nationally renowned center for botanical research, teaching collections and conservation initiatives. Its more than 700 acres of University of North Carolina (UNC) lands encompass nine display gardens, the 88-acre Piedmont Nature Trails, UNC campus’ Coker Arboretum and Battle Park, and the 367-acre Mason Farm Biological Preserve.    Apart from research and teaching activities, NCBG visitors participate in workshops and guided tours, or simply learn via self-guided strolls through its display gardens. At the Garden of Flowering Plant Families, visitors can read about plant family relationships between tobacco and petunias, where dissimilar plant groups have essentially "learned" to grow side by side.    During the 1920s, Dr. William Coker, UNC's first professor of botany, formed a comprehensive botanical sanctuary south of the main campus from a teaching collection of shrubs and trees at Coker Arboretum. By the early 1970s, campus and local environmentalists had advanced Coker's vision by sowing "habitat gardens" of native North Carolina plants across the state. Population surges ranging from flowering dogwoods to fox grape led to NCBG's modern-day mission of "conservation through propagation" to protect the state from native habitat loss.    "We were popularizing the wonderful, colorful, interesting and diverse native plants of North Carolina," recalls Dr. Peter White, NCBG director and UNC professor of biology and ecology.    "We also wanted to discourage damage to wild populations through folks simply digging them up," he adds. "This is especially a problem for those plants that don't produce many seeds, grow very fast or disperse very far."     Today's large-scale propagation initiative at NCBG focuses on amassing a different type of green. As of last November, it had raised $9 million of the $11 million necessary to complete an environmentally sustainable Visitor Education Center. Already under construction, the completed center will integrate indoor and outdoor spaces to illustrate the need for conservation-minded stewardship within habitats shared by people and plants.    "I think the building is getting lots of attention and will be a lot more noticed as it begins to take shape," White says, noting that the design earned a N.C. Sustainability Award in 2004. Fearrington Village    South of UNC’s botanical nerve center, the yellow dahlias and bright nasturtiums of a quiet country inn’s flower beds fortify a sensory escape with a brush-up on southeastern flora Known by reputation for its Mobil Five Star restaurant and top-tier retail, hospitality and residential life, Pittsboro’s Fearrington Village charms residents and guests alike with its historic British garden replications.    The garden settings that Fearrington Village developer R.B. Fitch and his wife, Jenny, visited on family trips to England inspired Jenny to plant Fearrington’s first gardens around the Village Center during the early 1980s. Today, her legacy keeps eight full-time gardeners busy maintaining approximately 60 planting beds.    The rose-draped trellises that make Jenny's White Garden a fairytale wedding destination exemplify the expertly cultivated natural beauty at Fearrington Village. Often seen working in the Village Center gardens, head gardener Donna Mears and her team answer guests' horticultural inquiries and lead tours of Fearrington's gardens on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. In support of responsible cultivation, they use environmentally responsible garden techniques and materials, and propagate native plants in Fearrington's greenhouses, some of which provide a food source for wildlife.    "Our plant choices are mostly based on suitability to our climate, and we borrow freely from the flora of similar climates from around the world," Mears explains.    Greg Fitch, vice president of the Fitch Creations Team at Fearrington, provides the resources, as-needed input, and, as he puts it, “a lot of creative license to go where they want to go.”    "The gardens have always had to look sharp year-round for the many different groups who visit the Village Green," Fitch notes. "Whether you are a Fearrington resident in for a newspaper or an inn guest from Cary, the gardens set the mood here." Witherspoon Rose Culture    In a large public garden, some simply contemplate, while others work to cultivate a picturesque garden of their own. For the cultivators, Durham's Witherspoon Rose Culture provides on-site personal rose care to residential clients and small businesses.    Launched in 1951 by R.K. "Bob" Witherspoon, the rose culture service today cares for more than 74,000 rose bushes across North Carolina and in Danville, Va. From instructing clients on rosebush maintenance to handling the entire maintenance pre-cutting, Witherspoon customizes its services to a customer's desired level of involvement. Jenny's fragrant white garden is one of more than 50 garden beds at Pittsboro's Fearrington Village, which are cultivated using organic methods and feature native plants.    "Most of our customers like for us to do the dirty work," notes David Pike, president. "They get a lot of exercise and enjoyment out of cutting and sharing their roses."    Similar to the conservation mindset applied at public gardens, Witherspoon has adopted gardening techniques that are not harmful to surrounding plant life. Gardeners locate rosebushes where they will not compete with tree or shrub roots, plant with native soil, and use a low-pressure irrigation system. Respectful fo the region's extreme drought, Witherspoon uses its own well and a retention pond for most of its water supply.    In 2002, a natural mutation of Witherspoon's pink-blooming Tiffany rose produces its first white bloom in the month Bob Witherspoon died. This mutation, or rose sport, never reverted back to its pink coloration, and the R.K. Witherspoon rose was born. Fearrington Village features several gardens, including the Fearrington Inn's English courtyard and know gardens. Photos: Fearrington Village    When a blooming rose bursts forth, its natural beauty rewards its gardener for learning to simulate how it might thrive on its own. Against a present-day collective conscience to treat the natural world kindly, a blooming rose's change of color might acknowledge that nature too has a little room to grow. Left: The English courtyard garden at Fearrington Inn.           Photo: Fearrington Village     Right: The R.K. Witherspoon rose, right, was named after the late R.K. Witherspoon. The Tiffany rose is on the left. Photo: Witherspoon Rose Culture         Funds for a cause    Among its many supporters, the Chapel Hill Garden Club (CHGC) is assisting the North Carolina Botanical Garden (NCBG) with its $11 million fundraising goal.    The CHGC will host its biennial Spring Garden Tour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 12 and noon to 4 p.m. April 13, featuring Meadowmont's DuBose House Gardens, NCBG's display gardens, and nine residential gardens. All proceeds from advanced tickets, which cost $15 per person, as well as those purchased at the door for $20 per person, will support completion of the environmentally sustainable Visitor Education Center.    "This year, gardening experts will be present in featured gardens to share advice on various topics affecting these gardens, such as the current drought and various aspects of gardening," says Carol Candler, Spring Garden Tour publicity coordinator.