Southern Style | Helen Yoest | Winter Interest Under Way For Umstead Hotel and Spa

Winter Interest Under Way For Umstead Hotel and Spa

By Helen Yoest

Winter, defined by gardeners from first to last frost, is often thought of as the off-season for gardens until spring returns But here we enjoy temperatures allowing gardening year-round. And what gardeners do in winter enhances the appeal of other seasons.

Now and after the holidays is a great time to evaluate your winter landscape and to make your space more interesting with plants, boulders, benches and accents.

The Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary recently did just that. Landscape designer Suzanne Edney of Custom Landscapes Inc. was brought in to evaluate and add winter interest elements to the six acres surrounding the five-star hotel.

“My mission was to give a ‘sense of place’ by using cultivars and ornamentals that have characteristics of North Carolina plants,” said Edney. Working directly with hotel owner Ann Goodnight, Edney evaluated and added to the existing design. She discovered many of the plants used in the original design were deciduous perennials, causing the landscape to look bare from December to April. Edney decided to add to the ground plane and break up a single plane of plantings.

To Edney, sense of place is an important factor for hotels of this caliber: “When you arrive at The Umstead Hotel and Spa, you want to know that you are in North Carolina, not in Italy or Miami or some other place.”

Plum yew, juniper and Hellebores comprise some of the ground covers used in the design, along with boulders to fill voids while giving the eye a restful place to pause. Grasses were added to give movement, and evergreen vines, perennials and shrubs — such as Clematis Armandii, poet’s laurel, Fatsia, roof iris, Spirea and Deodara Cedar — were added for winter interest and to add rhythm to the design.

Implementation of the design began this fall and will continue through the winter. It will be interesting to visit during this time to see how the transformation progresses.

GARDEN NEWS

The JC Raulston Arboretum hosts an annual A Walk in the Winter Garden program in February each year. Enjoy a winter garden-themed presentation and tours, and see what the winter garden has to offer. Visit their Web site at www.ncsu.edu/jcraulstonarboretum for details.