Mountain Gardens

Bus behind a church down the road

One of the many gorgeous views

     Upon arrival at Joe Hollis’ Mountain Gardens, we were astounded by the sheer quantity, diversity, and resulting beauty of the mountainside Eden. It was an intentional jungle of exotic and familiar plants. Delicious mulberry vines wound around trellises among roving bellflowers and six-foot-high poppies, while tromboncino squash spread around the bases. A mountain spring flowed through the terraced garden, providing habitat for water-loving plants such as wasabi, water lilies, and iris, as well as a healthy population of frogs. Every niche was filled with deliberate flora, some planted and some useful native “weeds.” This philosophy of designing a balanced ecosystem from the ground up with the needs of humans in mind is called “paradise gardening.” Joe Hollis has been perfecting his methods for forty years on his mountain land. When he started it was a steep, rocky, wooded hillside. Over time he gradually managed to carve out a patch of sunlight in the forest canopy where he has crammed an unbelievable amount of plants.

Cobb rocket stove

This space continues to grow and evolve in harmony with the surrounding forest. The goal of paradise gardening "is to 'naturalize' ourselves in the environment. This will involve changing ourselves and changing the environment: convergence toward 'fit.'" (from "Paradise Gardening" by Joe Hollis).

Tincture library

Our yurt

     Sprinkled amidst the winding paths and

surrounding national forest were a variety of naturally constructed dwellings, including yurts and cabins made of locally harvested timber, as well as a cobb dwelling with a living roof. We stayed in the open-air yurt, which was perched up in the woods overlooking the gardens. There was also a solar-powered community building consisting of an outdoor kitchen, extensive library, and herb shop. The herb shop was the farm’s main bread and butter, and where tinctures, salves, and formulas are made, from both Chinese and local herbs.

View of the farm from our yurt

     In a place where every plant is important, seemingly simple tasks such as planting and weeding become quite difficult. We couldn’t do anything on our own, because we did not know the extensive plans for all the plants, and invariably would step on something important. In any given planting area there were purposefully planted plants, weeds, Chinese herbs, Chinese herbs that had spread and became weeds that needed to come out, and Chinese herbs that had spread and became weeds that needed to be saved for use.

Picking out seed

One important variety of seed that we helped harvest was wasabi. Joe is the only grower of wasabi seeds in the US. Wasabi seeds are tricky to propagate because they cannot dry out and have to be painstakingly hand-separated from their pods. So, on rainy afternoons, it’s wasabi seed-separating time!

Let it be known that an Italian basketball player does fit into a VW

Jeff and Sean attempting coffee roasting

      There were six other long-term interns there when we arrived, who we enjoyed sharing meals and knowledge with. Everyone was taking advantage of this cultivating environment to pursue their own interests, from roasting coffee to making mushroom tinctures and brewing beer using traditional ground ivy.  

     We were excited to hear that down the street from Mountain Garden was an abandoned camp for mentally disabled children. When the funding was cut in the early ‘80s, the camp dried up and has been sitting vacant ever since. We are always keeping our eyes out for possible “urban” exploration and this fit the bill nicely.   We followed an overgrown path past looming feral topiaries, and came upon a compound comprised of several dilapidated cabins clustered together, and an old broken down school bus in the back. Further investigation revealed that the buildings seemed to have been vacated overnight with little attempt at packing up. The cupboards still had cans and boxes of food, books from the ‘60s and ‘70s were strewn across the bedrooms, and official mail from the ‘80s was stacked haphazardly. Pouring over the cast-aside detritus called forth glimpses into the lives of the inhabitants, almost as if a piece of them was still there.

   Randy was particularly excited to find one of the original agricultural pamphlets extolling the virtues of kudzu, the now prolific "scourge of the south." Mr. J. R. Sams, the County Agricultural Agent at Large of Columbus, NC in the ‘30s, drafted the document to encourage farmers to plant as many acres of kudzu as they could. He points out the erosion control benefits, but also that it is an excellent, attractive hay and pasture plant. Sams secures his place in infamy by declaring that kudzu is “easily eradicated when desirable, but no sane farmer will desire to get rid of it when he learns how to use it,” and that the creeping vine is “the greatest legume that God has given us.”

     We felt that there was much knowledge to be gained here, especially with Joe's years of experience and willingness to share it, but Sean from Sandy Mush called asking if we could help him out for a few days, so we cut our visit short and headed back over the mountain.