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Touch
of Gray - November 2001
Gardens
at Carolina Meadows have been a community effort
The Wildflower Garden
Around the Meadows
Energetic 84-year-old has passion for
recycling
Residents run afternoon worship on second
Sunday
Gardens
at Carolina Meadows have been a community effort
This
past summer Carolina Meadows residents and staff have appreciated
the gardens that sit throughout the campus like colorful accent
marks amid the rolling open space and the lush backdrop of
the woods. The tranquil setting is an oasis when one returns
from a trip.
But
residents who arrived shortly after the first buildings were
finished more than 15 years ago will tell you that getting
to this stage in the gardening was not easy.
Credit
for the beginning of landscaping at the retirement community
should be given to those first residents, who cleared out
garden space, hauled in decent soil from wherever they could
find it and found a maintenance worker to help with digging
the gardens.
Harriet
Churchill was one of the first residents of the Phase I apartments.
Behind Building 3, where she lived, she instigated the beginnings
of garden plots, and 13 residents began their own gardens,
mostly vegetable, but some flowers were planted in the plots.
One
early problem was how to get loads of top soil to the garden
plots. The truck couldn't get across the golf course, so the
soil was dumped in the apartment parking lot and wheel-barrowed
by residents to the plots.
Because
of the proximity of the gardens to the golf course, Carolina
Meadows management worried about the safety of the resident
gardeners and wanted to construct a huge fence to protect
them from golf balls. Since the residents believed the fence
would be unsightly, Churchill asked the golfer who was the
longest hitter to go out and tee off toward the garden. None
of the balls landed close to the garden plots, so the fence
was never erected.
When
these early garden plots were established, some of the ground-floor
residents in the nearby apartment building objected to looking
out at vegetable gardens and asked for a flower garden to
be placed where they could see it. So Churchill began her
special flower garden.
Like
any true lover of gardening, Churchill experimented. She started
with roses. As a volunteer at the N.C. Botanical Garden, she
learned more about herbal gardens and wildflowers. Her herbal
garden was used by the kitchen staff and her neighbors. She
loved growing blackberries and red raspberries in her vegetable
garden.
At
one point, Churchill and Sterling Brackett, another of Carolina
Meadows knowledgeable gardeners, identified and labeled trees
that were important to save.
One
of her fellow volunteers at the Botanical Garden was Bobbie
Wilkerson. When Wilkerson was planning to move to Carolina
Meadows a few years ago, Churchill offered to share her space
so that old favorites from the Wilkerson residence could be
brought to the wildflower garden.
Churchill
limits her gardening now, but she does have a large patio
planter with perennials and one tomato plant that produced
more than 50 tomatoes this year. She has also started orchids
in window gardens at her apartment.
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The
Wildflower Garden
Wilkerson
has taken over the maintenance of the gardens that Churchill
began. With the help of Carol Miller and Nancy Post, who see
that the gardens are maintained in Wilkerson's absence, the
wildflower garden is not only a pleasure for the eyes, but
an education in native wildflowers.
The
plants are clearly designated by ceramic markers created by
the residents' ceramics group and labeled by Wilkerson. Many
of the native plants, which have been propagated by the gardeners,
are spring-blooming, and familiar names such as bloodroot,
jack-in-the-pulpit, May apple, wild ginger, violet (white,
yellow and purple), indigo, columbine are among the collection
along with other native wildflowers -- foam flower, trout
lily, blue flag, sundrops, beard tongue, river oats and many
others.
Maple
leaf hydrangea, fothergilla and forsythia are among the several
shrubs included. Added to the mix are five fern varieties
-- Japan, Christmas, autumn, royal and soft shield. There
are also pass-along varieties of cuttings that gardeners share,
such as ageratum, Stokes aster, Lenten rose, hosta, cyclamen
and begonia. There are close to 50 different varieties in
this shaded sanctuary, the only wildflower garden on campus
that is designated by an attractive wooden sign: "Harriet
Churchill's Wildflower Garden."
Near
the vegetable gardens, crepe myrtle forms a backdrop to the
perennial garden closer to the apartment building. A few annuals
are also in the mixture that includes butterfly weed, blue
salvia, sunflower, two varieties of goldenrod, coreopsis,
callicarpa, ditch daisies, and the Carolina jessamine vine.
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Around
the Meadows
Because
of the persistence and industry of early gardeners like Churchill
-- and the willingness of more recent residents like Bobbie
Wilkerson to carry on -- there are now 35 garden plots, managed
by a resident committee, at Carolina Meadows. The north garden
plots have been improved this year and the garden shed now
has an enclosure to protect tools from the weather.
Villa
and apartment dwellers, following the early example of residents,
have also personalized their homes with roses, annuals and
perennials that thrive with tender care and the "know-how"
the residents brought from years of landscaping the grounds
of their previous homes.
Campus
landscaping has matured and each year there are new resident-inspired
additions to flower beds adjoining villas, apartments and
the Health Center. The landscaping staff plants and maintains
a number of flowering seasonal beds bright with such favorites
as begonia, salvia, impatiens -- later chrysanthemum -- and
then the winter-friendly yellows and purples of pansies.
At
the end of the summer, the entrance to Carolina Meadows featured
a bright glow of yellow coleus as a backdrop to red begonias.
Near the entrance to the Club Center, yellow lantana and blue
fan flower were summer mainstays.
The
Golden Pond with its waterfall and gazebo fits into its own
wooded corner near the croquet court. And the new Meadows
Garden, which also has a pool and waterfall, was completed
last year near the sixth green on the golf course and the
Health Center. It was in full splendor in late May when the
campus held a "Day in the Gardens." Among the summer plants
blooming in the garden were bright wave petunias, profusion
zinnias, salvia, verbascum, scented daylilies, Oriental lilies,
swamp milkweed, and nierembergia.
David
Henry, grounds supervisor, gave a complete update during the
garden tour, which also featured small front-entrance and
English gardens, rear terrace and woodland gardens, and rose
gardens.
The
Meadows Garden is the result of generous contributions and
is now maintained by staff and residents. Beryl Slome has
organized a group of resident volunteers who regularly weed
and deadhead the garden, and before this year ends they will
plant 500 tulip and daffodil bulbs, pansies and other winter-hardy
flowers.
Residents
continue to contribute to landscaping projects at Carolina
Meadows, which means that this year more specimen trees will
be planted and the Meadows Garden will have a nice addition
of flowering cherry trees. Residents also give the grounds
staff a wide variety of plants from their personal gardens
to use throughout the 170-acre campus.
Anyone
who has built a new home and then undertaken the landscaping
can appreciate the work of the early resident gardeners at
Carolina Meadows who cleared away the construction rubble,
dug through the clay, brought in the top soil and kept at
it until the gardening rewards of home-grown food and beautiful
flowers could be enjoyed by neighboring friends.
Campus
landscaping improves and thrives because early on the spirit
came from those who called Carolina Meadows home and understood
what they wanted to do and what they enjoyed doing with gardens.
And then, as the landscaping staff grew, both residents and
staff formed a close working relationship that has resulted
in continuous grounds beautification.
Tucked
into Harriet Churchill's Wildflower Garden is a small sign:
"He who plants a garden plants happiness." In a few words,
this captures the year-round pleasure not only for gardeners,
but for walkers and golfers and visitors at Carolina Meadows.
-- Pauly Dodd
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Energetic
84-year-old has passion for recycling
Many
items are recycled at Carolina Meadows thanks to the energy
and commitment of a team of volunteers. Until recently the
Recycling Committee was chaired by Miriam Murdock; now an
equally passionate conservationist, Jane Sharp, chairs it.
In
the apartment buildings there are storage rooms with recyclable
containers for glass, mixed paper, aluminum cans, and tin
cans. At the mail kiosks, there are containers for recycling
mixed paper, hearing batteries, aluminum pull tabs and plastic
pull tabs. In the transportation office batteries from AAAA
to D and 100 percent recyclable paper are collected. A volunteer
corps picks up many of the items and takes them to the various
local recycling centers.
Villa
residents drop off newspapers, glass and corrugated board
at bins in the Carolina Meadows maintenance area near the
south entrance. Even food waste is recycled in some residents
homes and used for compost.
Jane
Sharp recycles in all sorts of ways. There are light bulbs
in her home that she purchased in 1975 and are still in use.
These light bulbs give the light of 60 watts for 15 watts
of expended energy. She installed solar panels in her previous
home in Chapel Hill for heating her home and water.
Sharp
worked in state government from 1977-81, developing policy
on the environment, energy and waste management.
Now,
this energetic 84-year-old with twinkling blue eyes volunteers
for a number of organizations connected with conservation
and recycling. Her aim at Carolina Meadows is to streamline
and expand recycling work, add more recycling in different
areas and to learn how to recycle different things. -- Rosemary
Hutchinson
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Residents
run afternoon worship on second Sunday
Many
Carolina Meadows residents are active in Chapel Hill area
churches and synagogues. For those who cannot make it downtown,
there is a well-attended Episcopalian service monthly in The
Fairways and a Catholic Mass in the Health Center. The Baptists
also come regularly and also provide bus service on Sundays
to Mount Carmel Church next door. A recently organized and
already well-attended worship service under Presbyterian auspices,
but open to all residents, has been added at the Health Center.
What makes this new service very special is that it is completely
run by community residents.
Leading
the new service is the Rev. Phyllis Koehnline, a resident
and a retired Presbyterian minister. She attends University
Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill, where more than 70 Carolina
Meadows residents are members.
At
an afternoon tea given at Carolina Meadows last fall by University
Presbyterian, there was much talk among the members about
how welcome a regular worship service right on campus would
be. Koehnline remembers thinking, "Well, I could do that once
a month, maybe in the afternoon, around four o'clock, after
nap time."
With
the approval of University Presbyterian's governing body and
pastor, the Rev. Robert Dunham, the services began with the
active help of Kris Snyder and Jody Hite of the Carolina Meadows
Activities Department. They found the place and the time,
and each month they set up the room for Sunday before leaving
for the weekend.
"We
started on the second Sunday in December," Koehnline remembers,
"not the best time to begin something new because so much
happens here in December. That afternoon there was a concert
in the auditorium, a bus trip to another concert off campus
and a party in The Fairways. Even so, we had 35 people here,
singing Christmas carols."
Services
have been held regularly ever since on the second Sunday of
each month. Now there are more than 50 attendees. They come
not only from the Health Center but from all over Carolina
Meadows. In September, an extra service was added on the fifth
Sunday of those months when that occurs. On those four extra
days there will be Holy Communion, Koehnline notes.
"There
are many of our church members living here who cannot function
well in a large church, even if they have a way to get there,"
Koehnline said. "If they don't see or hear well, or if sitting
in the pew for an hour is too painful, or getting up and down
is too hard, if they have trouble moving around, they elect
not to go. Our service here is just what they want. It lasts
from 30 to 40 minutes. They can sit the entire time, and they
can get all the help they need."
The
services could not happen without the help and support of
many residents. Lucie Johnson, the University Presbyterian
deacon for Carolina Meadows, is what Koehnline calls "the
spark plug that makes it all work." She inspires other members
and organizes and carries out necessary detail work.
Alice
Patterson started a small music group to provide special selections.
Now, accompanied by Gibbs Slater at the piano, there is a
choir made up of Patterson, Bob Buzenburg, Jane Rogers, Louise
and Stiles Stribling, Jean Waterbury, Peggy Wharton and Bobbie
Wilkerson. Several of those individuals have also been liturgists
for the services. Mac Converse called one day to offer his
help, and now he and his wife, Bette, are an important part
of the team. Mac serves Communion on occasion, as do Bill
Koehnline and Johnsie McFadden as well as some choir members,
all of whom are Presbyterian elders.
There
are three couples who arrive early to walk through the hallways
of the Health Center around 3:15 in the afternoon to be sure
residents are awake and to ask if they would like assistance.
A little later Ben and Ellen Courts, Bill and Marian Lawder,
and Bob and Evelyn Thoits return to escort whoever needs help.
Backing up all this effort is Shirley Wire, who distributes
reminder notices to residents' in-house mailboxes each month,
and Helen Schneider, who makes the necessary follow-up phone
calls.
One
and all express their gratitude for having their own church
in this place once a month.
"We
talk about it between services," Virginia Nicholson says.
"We always look forward to the next one. We'll be there!"
-- Des Reilly
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