05-27-18 Asheville, NC Arboretum, Blue Ridge Parkway and Dinner in town

We arrived in Asheville to visit our friends Gloria and Jerry and had a lovely evening. The following day, being nice and sunny, we headed out to

Entrance sign to the Arboretum

The North Carolina Arboretum. This place, about 434 acres in size, includes a lovely arboretum, botanical gardens and a lot of walking paths to explore.

Although the idea for the arboretum stretches back to landscape architect in 1898, the actual place was not developed until quite recently – 1986 – so it is new and filled with lovely plants. While the place is still under development, there are a variety of hiking and bicycling trails along with several mature gardens. Our goal for the day was to get to the bonsai collection.

Inside the main building was a travelling exhibit, Making Scents: The art and passion of Fragrance. While we have seen similar examples of fragrance displays, including a museum in Paris, it was neat to see someone Janeen knows from the Huntington Library and Gardens in CA as part of the exhibit! Tom Carruth

Janeen knows this guy – he is the rose curator at the Huntington Library and Gardens Tom Carruth! Everywhere we find roses we seem to find Tom

is the curator of the Rose Garden and is known for breeding scented roses such as Sentimental and the Juila Child Rose

After looking over the traveling exhibit we headed outside

Janeen, Jerry and Gloria trying to figure out the map.
Blue Ridge Quilt Garden – very nice indeed.
NC Arboretum Greenhouse.

and walked towards the bonsai garden and past the model train (which it seems every garden needs to have)

We have not visited two different gardens both of them have had model railroads. Not sure what happens when the snows come…

and past a number of lovely areas. Eventually we made our way to the bonsai area

The entrance to the Bonsai garden with it’s winding pathway.

that was specular. It always amazes me to see these huge trees pruned to be so small!

A little forest about 18 inches tall.
Japanese maple
Lovely little treasures
This Azalea was in full bloom and about 18 inches tall!
I could never been patient enough to grow these.
Gloria and Jerry at the bonsai area.

 

After the Arboretum we drove out the Blue Ridge Parkway

There were at least 12 tunnels along the way.

and stopped for lunch at Pisgah Inn. This restaurant is at the top of the

The dining room at Pisgah Inn
The view of the mountains from our lunch spot at Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway

mountain overlooking the various surrounding hills. Nice views, lunch was OK views were better.

 

For dinner we hit a Mexican restaurant called Limones Restaurant.

Limones Restaurant where we had dinner in Asheville.
Here we are having dinner at Limones Restaurant in Asheville.
Halibut with crimson lentils, organic kale, grained mustard-lemon sauce, pineapple-green onion pico.
Ceviche Sampler – shrimp, trigger fish and tuna.
Roasted Beet Salad with watermelon, mint, gruyere cheese, aged cider-cardammon vinaigrette
Three Cheese Chile Relleno with pico de gallo, black bean sauce, crema

Not overly crowded and had delicious food.