Access Asheville: Asheville Botanical Garden, Spade to Table lunch, and dinner at Forestry Camp

Our first stop today was to wander around in Asheville's Botanical Garden.

The permeable walkways were nice and wide. Not only providing easy access of wheelchairs and strollers, but allows water to drain into the ground.

Plant labels are placed at the appropriate height for walkers, children, and wheelchairs.

Gardens also show that all visitors were considered in the design.

There are many benches and shade areas placed throughout the garden.

There are also many places for all ages to grand lots of natural, open spaces.

So happy to have this beautiful day together!

A mom and her daughters enjoy a picnic alongside the stream running through the gardens.

Found a plant I REALLY want. Woodland pinkroot?

Once again, we see nature centers using best practices (BMP) to manage stormwater runoff.

We also see efforts to educate visitors on what they can do in their own spaces to manage stormwater. Here are some efforts we have at school using plants to clean the run offend waste from the duck pond.

This is our bio retention cell we built at school.

Kat and Joan being silly and having fun in the gardens of our great lunch spot - Sunny Point Cafe. Great find Kat!

Love this sun dial!

Plenty of room between beds makes it easy and comfortable to move about

Bird baths welcome wildlife in.

Tin bowls keep wildlife out of certain areas.Great use of integrated pest management!

Vertical gardening doubles the amount of space.

Dinner at historic Forestry Camp

"Here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, the CCC began building what many consider the country’s greatest scenic byway: the Blue Ridge Parkway, which snakes 469 miles across the Appalachian Mountains from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. Men toiled by hand to cut the curving road and its iconic tunnels into the rugged landscape—stashing their spare personal belongings, extra lumber, and tools in spartan cubbies at Forestry Camp. Some of their numbered identification markers remain as clues to the past.

More than eighty years later, the Blue Ridge Parkway provides the backbone of the regional tourism industry and helps bring a nearly endless stream of visitors to Asheville. Also big business these days? Craft beer—such as the nuanced brews created by Forestry Camp’s owners, the founders of one of Asheville’s most popular breweries, Burial Beer Co. In other words, the pairing here is as natural as, say, cracking a cold one after a long hike through the woods." - The Local Palate - here's a link to the rest of the article about this 2 acre space which not only has this great restaurant with a few surviving relics, but brewhouses as well.

https://thelocalpalate.com/articles/a-forestry-camp-grows-in-asheville/