Atop the austere and stuffily named Legal Building, overlooking construction traffic in the city’s once-and-future central park, sit the Asheville offices of Design Workshop. Although the company’s name may not be familiar to many area residents, its work in landscape architecture, land planning and urban design has borne fruit in projects worldwide. And now, Design […]
Author: Cecil Bothwell
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Help with the woolly bully
Everywhere you look in Asheville, the hemlock trees are trimmed with white fluff, more technically known as the hemlock woolly adelgid. The tiny, aphid-like insects suck the life out of their hosts and have spread through the region’s forests in recent years. While scientists search for ways to battle the horde, for now the only […]
Garden Journal
What are cooks cookin’? The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project has received a grant from the Community Foundation for a program that will train local chefs to teach kids about cooking and food choices. ASAP’s Mixing Bowl project, which is expected to begin this fall, will connect restaurants that want to buy local to farmers wanting […]
Audit reveals missing guns, drugs and money at Buncombe Sheriff’s Department
Buncombe County has released a sheriff’s evidence-room audit report citing “poor management, poor organizational skills and failure to maintain a clear chain of custody” during the administration of former Sheriff Bobby Medford.
Holy cow
Amid a swarm of Secret Service agents, golf carts, media reps and 1,500 invited guests, the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte was dedicated on Thursday, May 31—a day also marked by the appearance of a blue moon. All three living ex-presidents—George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton—were in attendance, together with Billy, his son […]
Growing smaller with thyme
“Betty started this business in 1982 and it’s gone through a lot of transitions.” The speaker is Alan Salmon. Betty Sparrow is his wife and co-grower at Wildwood Herbal Flower Farm, a small-scale nursery a stone’s throw from the Zebulon Vance birthplace on Reems Creek Road in Weaverville. Hands on: Alan Salmon delivers plants and […]
Garden Journal
Help is on the way: The USDA has declared 47 N.C. counties natural-disaster areas as a result of the Easter freeze. This opens the door for disaster assistance, including emergency loans through the Farm Security Administration. Disaster provisions were included in the recently enacted Iraq Supplemental Appropriations bill. The bill covers disasters from 2005, 2006 […]
Landscape design interns offer ideas for Asheville’s riverfront
Simply put, Design Workshop is in the business of reinventing our world. This week, the company is bringing 16 of the best landscape-design students in the world to the banks of the French Broad River.
Buncombe County Board of Commissioners preview: June 5 meeting
The Buncombe County Board of commissioners will meet Tuesday, June 5, at 4:30 p.m., with public comment starting up at 4. On the agenda is a public hearing on next year’s budget, possible benefits of Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances, a report touting the benefits of an independent airport authority and an uninsured health-care initiative.
Air fair?
People Advocating Real Conservancy, an Asheville community activist group, has decided to challenge the city’s policy of selling air rights to developers. At the same time, the group has placed an upset bid on air rights above the sidewalk at 82 Patton Avenue offered for sale to redevelopers of the old First Union Building.
Green from grime
Growing up in Franklin, Charles Clouse learned everything he wanted to know about farming. He didn’t like it—particularly the part where his father assigned him to hoe acres of corn. As far as the eye can see: Twenty-three acres of greenhouses stretch from valley floor to ridgeline on this West Asheville hillside. photos by Cecil […]
Diamond for diamond
Cute American Idol analogies are to be avoided—because when eight of the area’s most exhibitionist singers go tonsil-to-tonsil during Asheville Community Theatre’s Diva*licious musical-theater sing-offs, it’s not TV-addled teens doing the voting, but actual theater buffs with plenty of drama-directed dollars. Asheville Community Theatre’s first major fund-raiser is a Great White Way-worthy gala. The winner […]
Garden Journal
Burned but not broken: Appalachian Sustainable Development and Appalachian Harvest, based in Abingdon, Va., help local farmers plan, grow and market their crops in much the same way that the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project aids growers in the southern mountains. Last week, the 10,000-square-foot Appalachian Harvest Packing Facility burned to the ground. The facility distributed […]
Where to park your carcass if you wanna ride the bus
Asheville blogger Paul Van Heden has created a map for would-be transit riders who are in the market for housing. Van Heden is the brain behind the Brainshrub Bus Project and holds forth at Brainshrub.com.
Former WNC Nature Center manager charged with larceny
Former WNC Nature Center Manager James Patrick Lance has been charged with obtaining property by false pretenses using funds intended for the center.
Got wheels?
Asheville’s official trash cans are easy on residents and city workers, but the hydraulic lift system used to empty them is rough on the cans’ wheels. The good news is that the city will stop by and fix your “flat.”
A house in the woods at UNCA
Sparking some local protest, the UNC Asheville Foundation is poised to begin construction of Pisgah House, a new chancellor’s residence that has been planned over the past eight years. Running out of woods?: Critics assert that UNCA shouldn’t site a new chancellor’s residence in the school’s wooded South Campus. A university spokesperson says the home […]
Talk media consolidation with a former White House press secretary
According to media-watchdog organizations including Accuracy in Media and Free Press, six corporations control most of the news presented to most Americans: TV, cable, radio, newspapers, magazines, books and bookstores are increasingly dominated by a handful of businesses. At the same time, major corporatations are pressing for relaxation of rules limiting ownership of newspapers and […]
Finding company for the farmer in the dell
A farmer may be outstanding in her field, but if she’s out standing in her field she may not find time to network with other farmers facing the same problems, decisions and market forces. Now the Organic Grower’s School and N.C. Agricultural and Technical University have linked up to create a Farmer-to-Farmer mentoring series to […]
Garden Journal
Has your farm got a future? A workshop sponsored by the Farm Prosperity Project and the N.C. Farm Transition Network will offer participants guidance on how to preserve farms and farmland during the process of inheritance. Topics will include creation of a transition plan, estate planning, managing risk through conservation programs and hands-on exercises. After […]
Moonlight over Downtown kicks off Downtown After Five music series
A few thousand fun-seekers, including Asheville Police Chief Bill Hogan, turned out for the first of this year’s Downtown After Five events on Friday night. Battery Park was jammed with jabbering locals and tourists boogeying to the sound of Grinning Mob and Outformation.