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great mind hides
behind a tangle of gardenia, camellia, red can-nas
and banana shrub, moonflower, passion-flower,
hibiscus hybrids and fig. The gardener
is a Harvard-trained architect with an intense
interest in botany and horticulture that’s evi-dent
as he begins to rattle off common and
botanical plant names with ease.
Edward McCaleb and his family moved to
Wilmington 15 years ago from Pawley’s Island,
South Carolina. McCaleb is from Jackson,
Mississippi. He has lived in the Princess Street
house for about 12 years. Built around 1920,
the McCalebs created a Southern garden true
to the home’s early 20th century origins and his
roots in Jackson.
At the time the house was built, gardeners
readily shared their plants with family, friends
and neighbors, and neighboring gardens were
much alike. Cuttings, also called starts or slips,
were shared for rooting, and seedlings or sec-tions
of plants that had been divided were
also shared. Many gardeners have come home
to the delightful surprise of a start hanging
on their doorknob or a baby plant sitting on
their front step. The old Southern tradition
of starting gardens this way continues today.
Pass-along plants hold memories, too, of
loved ones who’ve passed on. The plants are
a way to keep the memories alive, and pass
them on to the next generation.
McCaleb’s is clearly a collector’s garden.
He particularly likes old-fashioned flowers
and vines. About half of the old fashioneds
are from Jackson, passed along by his parents
and grandmother, he says — four o’clocks,
crinum lilies, trumpet vine. The trumpet vine
was a start dug up from his father’s garden.
“My father’s vine had a trunk eight
inches thick; a lot of hummingbirds came
to visit him as he sat under it when he was
ill,” McCaleb says.
He has gardenias near the front porch,
grown from cuttings: moonvine (Ipomoea
alba), and night-blooming Cereus
(Epiphyllum oxypetalum), both with heavenly
nighttime fragrances; cypress vine (Ipomoea
quamoclit), also a favorite of humming-birds,
and banana shrub (Michelia figo),
which “Smells like Juicyfruit gum,” he says.
Camellias, especially the winter and spring-blooming
japonicas, are scattered throughout
the garden to complete the four seasons of
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Edward McCaleb