Mrs. Rosa's dahlias

This is the daughter of Mrs. Rosa Hicks of Banner Elk, N.C., standing next to her mother's dahlias at a family reunion. Rosa is the widow of famed storyteller Ray Hicks. Mrs. Hicks and her flowers are a treasure. I interviewed her for a 2007 magazine article, excerpted here:

Rosa Hicks, 76, who has lived her life in the high country of Avery County, was one of the North Carolina farm women immortalized in Lawrence's book "Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins," published after the author's death. Hicks has advertised in the N.C. Agricultural Review for more than 50 years, and still sells dahlias through the mail and at her house on Old Mountain Road in Banner Elk. Her offerings from the 1950s and 60s read like an encyclopedia of North Carolina's treasured wildflowers: Dutchman's breeches, Ladyslippers, trilliums, bellworts, trout lilies, mayapples and galax.

"Mostly all the flowers we advertised were around the house on our place," she said. "But some we had to go to the woods to get." Back then, Hicks swapped plants with "other flower lovers" and sometimes bartered for printed feed sacks, which she used to sew pillowslips and children's shirts and dresses. Though she enjoyed trading plants and says it sometimes felt like a hobby, the money she earned was—and still is—a vital source of household income.

Elizabeth Lawrence also wrote a passage about Ray Hicks and his thoughts on snakebite.

"People don't understand snakebite," he said. "There are herbs for it, but turpentine and whiskey are the surest cures." He knows a man who has three scars on his face and twelve on his legs from being bitten when he was gathering ginseng. "He never goes where snakes are without taking three bottles of turpentine and a pint of pure good whiskey with him. When a snake strikes he pours the turpentine on the wound, a bottle at a time, until all the poison is drawn out. Then he drinks the whiskey and lies down. If you drink the whiskey first it will kill you."

You can read some of the memories of Ray and Rosa Hicks here.

Mrs. Hicks' flower trade is pretty informal. There are no fancy catalogs. I mailed her $15 last year and asked her to send me as many dahlia tubers as she'd like for that price. I received quite a few fat ones in great condition. They were mixed, so I had to wait for them to bloom to see how they'd look. I know that's not for everyone, but I like to be surprised. And knowing how long they've been in her family makes it extra special.

Should you wish, you may write to her to inquire about her flower sales: Rosa Hicks, 218 Old Mountain Road, Banner Elk, NC 28604.

Redneck dahlia

Dahlia tubers arrived

Received my spring order from Old House Gardens today, which included Dahlia atropurpurea (pictured at left, courtesy of OHG's online catalog). According to OHG, D. atropurpurea is a dark purple form of D. pinnata, one of the first three wild dahlias to be exported to Europe from Mexico.













On one of my regular visits to J.C. Raulston Arboretum back in October, I was intrigued by the D. coccinea blooming in the geophyte border of the rooftop garden and photographed them for my records (above). I had never seen a species dahlia, or even heard of them for that matter, but of course hybrids have to come from somewhere! So when I saw OHG's D. atropurpurea, I had to order it. I love the idea of growing dahlias as wildflowers, and I like the single form of the blossom. The species dahlias at the arboretum were going like gangbusters, in spite of extreme drought.

I also received in my order the dahlias Little Beeswings (ca. 1909), Madame Stappers (ca. 1947) and Andries' Orange (ca. 1936). Until today, the only named dahlia I had was Prince Noir (ca. 1954), which would be the dahlia I would grow if I could only choose one. Besides it, I have several heirloom passalongs from two sources: Mrs. Rosa Hicks of Banner Elk, N.C., and the late Mrs. Brownie Johnson of Harrells, N.C., whom I miss dearly.

I found a little more on species dahlias here.

A tough broad and tough gardener

Before my uncle died last year, he let me rifle through a trunk of old photos that belonged to my grandmother. I found this one of her sister, my great aunt "Dodo" (her real name was Dora), who lived in Greensboro, N.C. I adore this photo of her, standing like a hardy plainswoman with a cigarette, daring the dirt to defy her. She lived into her 90s, but unfortunately her gardening career ended well before that.

A pin in her hip kept her confined to a wheelchair in latter years. But at one time, you could always find her toiling in her garden that in autumn was a jungle of dahlias. I don’t recall seeing them except in photographs—the blooms were head-high. Dad tells me that Aunt Dodo could coax anything to grow in "pure mud." She transformed the landscape with mulch, kitchen scraps and anything else she could turn into compost. Dad says she would order all manner of "oddball" stuff from catalogs and that she made the most of her space, training cucumbers, squash and any plants she could talk into growing vertically.

Aunt Dodo filled the table with vegetables from the garden to feed the family while her sister spent several years in a tuberculosis sanatorium. In the trunk, I found this letter she wrote to my grandmother Sept. 9, 1949:

".....I cut the last cabbage today. We have had plenty all summer. The 175 I put out are living all but few the pidgeons snipped off. We had our first tender greens yesterday with corn bread. The two new patches I planted few days ago are coming up —purple top and tendergreens. The new tomatoes are coming along and have plenty for the table. The last 12 plants are just ready to bloom. New snap beans almost ready to bloom. We get plenty okra - egg plant - lima beans - snap beans - hot & sweet peppers. So far very few things bought outside of staples. The figs are ripening fast. I preserve them for you. Lots of love, Sis Dora"

Aunt Dodo was a tough old broad, widowed young. She was a subsistence gardener and flower grower, a hard-working private duty nurse, devoted smoker and a faithful one-Budweiser-a-day drinker. Dad recalls visiting her in an apartment littered with dog-eared copies of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines and ashtrays with butts piled to the ceiling.

Aunt Dodo was one of my dearest relatives. When I was young, she clipped articles about Elton John and other rock stars I liked and tucked them into her shakily hand-scrawled letters to me. After both she and my grandmother were dead, my dad and uncle found her wedding ring among the possessions. It fit me perfectly, and they gave it to me as a gift, which I put on immediately and never took off. When I got married, I chose to wear it as my own.