There are are 100 counties in North Carolina. Before they were eliminated, there were 100 pennies in a dollar. 100 degrees centigrade is the boiling point of water. And no matter how many times I capture one to count them, there are usually way more than 100 legs on a centipede. The “cent-” prefix means 100, but it just doesn’t make sense, or cents, for that matter.
You are reading the 100th column in this series. Four years and four months ago, The Smoky Mountain News published the first piece in what would become “The Joyful Botanist” with the hope of sharing my love and passion for the plants and wildflowers of Southern Appalachia. That first article, written under the title “Notes form a plant nerd,” was an introduction to me, the origin story of how I found my way into studying and teaching about plants.
That first column ended with this question I am still asking today: “…If you don’t know something is there, how can you love it? And if you don’t love it, why would you care if it’s there?” I ask this because I want you to fall in love with native plants and wildflowers.
My love affair with wildflowers and plants continues. It is the longest and most successful relationship I’ve ever had, and I intend to stay in love for the rest of my life. The beauty of this relationship is that it is reciprocal. The plants and wildflowers tell me this all the time.
I tend to like plants more than people. People keep reminding me why this is. The exception, of course, are the plant people. Those people who also love plants turn out to be my favorite kind. This year, I’ve been celebrating plants with plant people all around the Southeastern United States, and I’m not done yet. I’ve been honored to lead plant walks at the final Cullowhee Native Plant Conference, the American Herbalist Guild’s Annual Symposium, and for garden clubs and private groups from all over. I intend to continue offering wildflower walks through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions on a regular basis again next Spring.
I’ve also been gathering with plant people at festivals and celebrations across the region. I’ve spoken at the South Carolina Pawpaw Festival, helped out at the Highlands Native Plant Symposium, and recently attended both the South Carolina Native Plant Society’s 30th Anniversary celebration and symposium in Charleston and the North Carolina Native Plant Society’s 75th anniversary celebration in Pittsboro.
At the North Carolina event, I visited one of the most beautiful conservation projects I’ve ever been to or even heard about. On Sunday, fittingly, a group of us met at and toured the Bluestem Conservation Cemetery. This project conserves and protects 87 acres of land by doing active restoration of a piedmont prairie made mostly of a wildflower-filled grassland.
The deeply profound way they are funding the conservation of this land is hosting natural burials; no embalming or cremated remains are currently allowed. While family members are given locations of their interred loved ones and there are small grave markers, project leaders encourage families to consider that their dearly departed are now a part of the entire meadow, and not just at the GPS coordinates where they were buried. This matches the nature-based spirituality I practice.
Culturally, we have a hard time seeing the beauty and goodness in death and the end-of-life cycles that greet all living things. Yet, every year, people flock to the mountains in autumn to watch the leaves die, because that death is beautiful. Would that we could see the beauty in death even as we mourn the loss.
I’m not sure why the Bluestem Conservation Cemetery has resonated with me so much, but I think it comes back to my loving relationship with plants and wildflowers. In traditional marriage, it is said that you are wed “’til death do us part.” Bluestem and other natural burial projects and movements across the country show us that even in my death, I can help celebrate plants and nature.
I have no plans of dying any time soon, while acknowledging that it is out of my control. Until then, I will continue to help others fall in love with plants and wildflowers, continue gathering with fellow plant people, and continue to write about the beautiful and magical plants of Southeastern United States.
Here’s to a hundred articles, and here’s to the wildflowers who love me too. I toast you a hundred times for reading this column, for walking among the wildflowers, and for your loving support of my work. I do it for the plants.
(The Joyful Botanist leads weekly wildflower walks most Fridays and offers consultations and private group tours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. bigelownc@gmail.com.)